Moral Issues in Special Education. Robert F. Ladenson
of libertarianism must acknowledge.39
Summary of the Analysis Thus Far
The analysis began by noting a crucial issue concerning the concept of deprivation of freedom that must be addressed by any justification of the judgment that children in Group A have a moral right to receive an appropriate education.
The analysis then proceeded with two steps to address this issue. The first step was development of a conception of an appropriate K–12 education for children in Group A; under this conception, such an education has two prongs. It must be reasonably calculated to impart knowledge and develop abilities needed to (1) deliberate meaningfully about exercising rights, fulfilling responsibilities, and exemplifying ideals of membership in the American democratic body politic and (2) have a reasonable chance for success in seeking the basic human good of self-fulfillment.
The second step in the analysis was to argue that the above conception is applicable—in its entirety—with respect to all children in Group A. The argument sought to show that such a conclusion is justified by an overlapping consensus of four major philosophical theories of social justice, each embodying a significantly different account of the idea of moral responsibility in relation to governmental action (i.e., Utilitarianism, Rawlsian Justice as fairness, the capabilities account of social justice, and moderate libertarianism).
Each of the four major theories considered has been developed, analyzed, discussed, and debated extensively by academic philosophers. Given the detail and philosophical depth with which all these theories have been articulated, debate and discussion among proponents of each theory will in all likelihood continue for a long time.
The analysis expresses no opinion about which theory is strongest. Instead, it provides, from each theory’s perspective, plausible justifications of the judgment that children in Group A have a moral right to receive an appropriate education (as understood in terms of the two-pronged analysis).
Each theory, as reiterated below, has a different moral concept at its core:
• utilitarianism (happiness/avoidance of unhappiness);
• Rawlsian Justice as fairness (fairness);
• capabilities account of social justice (human dignity); and
• Moderate libertarianism (liberty [freedom]).
The two prongs of the essential objective of an appropriate education for children in Group A concern knowledge and abilities of utmost importance from the standpoints of all four core moral concepts. The preceding argument thus provides a persuasive response to the issues raised near the beginning of this chapter concerning deprivation of liberty.
Considerations of happiness/avoidance or prevention of unhappiness, fairness, human dignity, and liberty (freedom) all converge to justify the judgment that American children in Group A have a moral right to receive an appropriate K–12 education.
The Minimum Content Account
The idea of the two-pronged essential objective of an appropriate K–12 education developed in this chapter is central to a justified conception of the kind of education American children in Group A have a moral right to receive. In this context the two-pronged objective, although difficult to realize, may be reasonably considered as achievable. Yet questions of how to do so raise difficult, complex, controversial, and at times hotly contested issues.
These issues concern primarily the (1) expenditure for providing K–12 education, which raises issues about allocation of resources between education and other vital areas; (2) appropriate distribution of social resources allocated to K–12 education for economically deprived students and students with disabilities; (3) development and implementation of educational programs (i.e., what and how students are taught); (4) attention to adequate educational progress of students from both individual and aggregative standpoints; (5) division of responsibility between lawmakers, K–12 public school educators, and parents of school-aged children for providing education for children with disabilities.
All the above kinds of issues have generated intense, ongoing controversies. For the reasons set forth in this chapter, however, the idea that children in Group A have a moral right to receive an appropriate education is not only shared widely among the vast majority of Americans but also grounded in a plausible justification from a moral standpoint.
This morally justified consensus reflects widespread agreement upon the two principles stated below, arguably the minimum content of the moral right of any child in Group A to receive an appropriate education. This content encapsulates the entitlements which all who acknowledge the right would agree are necessary elements of it, regardless of other disagreements they may have over how the right should be interpreted:
(1) The right to a reasonable educational program: American children in Group A have a moral right to receive a K–12 education reasonably calculated to achieve the two-pronged essential objective of an appropriate K–12 education.
(2) The right to equal educational concern: American children in Group A have a moral right to equal educational concern on the part of the public educational agencies which share the ultimate responsibility to provide appropriate educational programs for them.40
For (1) above, the term “reasonable” needs some explanatory words. In the context of the moral right of a child in Group A to receive an appropriate education, the term denotes something stronger than the default justification of mere nonarbitrariness and weaker than the strong standard of justification beyond a reasonable doubt. Reasonable K–12 educational programs all have plausible justifications grounded in points that merit careful attention. They shift the onus of justification to the other side(s) of the question, at least to the extent of deserving a considered response.
A justification can be plausible even if it neither identifies every relevant consideration nor treats in depth every significant issue in connection with the factors it identifies. Plausible justifications are those a substantial number of reasonable persons could find persuasive.
As for (2) above, the phrase “educational concern” refers to efforts by those responsible for providing an appropriate K–12 education to identify and address specific areas of educational need and benefit for students. Such efforts encompass not only working with individual students but also developing general policies and programmatic initiatives. From a minimum content standpoint, significant failures on the part of schools in this regard violate the second principle. The following are the three clear kinds of violations (with examples of each):
i. unresponsiveness: failure to respond in a reasonable and timely way to parents’ (or children’s) questions or meeting requests;
ii. indifference: failure to give heightened attention and to provide significant assistance to students in danger of failing courses;
iii. neglect: failure to address high dropout rates among certain categories of students through collecting and analyzing data and developing programs to address the problem.
The minimum content account set forth above inevitably raises an important question of practical ethics. Can it provide helpful guidance for decisions concerning complex, controversial, contentiously disputed, and difficult-to-resolve questions of educational practice and policy? The preceding discussion in this chapter of the two-pronged essential objective of an appropriate K–12 education for American children in Group A contains significant resources in this regard.
With respect to the first prong, the ideal objective of civic education on the K–12 level is to foster development of the attitude intrinsic to democratic deliberation. Such an attitude, as contended, must be widespread throughout the American body politic for democratic government in the United States to flourish. As emphasized earlier, a person need not have expert knowledge and awareness of public affairs as a prerequisite to exemplifying the attitude intrinsic to democratic deliberation. However, she must have the kinds of knowledge, awareness, and abilities that an appropriate education for children in Group A is reasonably calculated to impart.41 Again, specifically, these are as follows:
• knowledge concerning fundamental aspects of the constitutional structure of American