I've been teaching in the metro Detroit area for 20 years and have seen the growth of unfunded special education mandates that drain budgets, lower standards in the classroom, and drain the energy of even the best teachers.  In Michigan special education is funded at about 40% of the cost of the services schools are required to provide.  Our school has an excellent special education program that attracts families with special needs students.  Our educational success with this population has produced a financial drain on the districts operating budget.

In addition, mainstreaming special education kids in general Ed classrooms has made it substantially harder to "raise the bar" for the class as a whole.  Each special education student come to class with an(IDP) Individualized Development Plan that require teachers to individually modify assignments and tests for each special education student.  With 14% of the students in our school classified as special education teacher workloads have increased dramatically.

Finally, As states fight to attract businesses with tax breaks state coffers will continue to dwindle and adequate funding will become impossible to provide.   We need fair taxation, adequate funding, and reasonable expectation for teachers to make substantial improvement is our schools.