You don't even have to cite poor districts to see this. In Bloomington, IN, the presence of the University also ensures that you have a large number of non-English speakers every year, and every district everywhere has a certain number of disabled children (who have mostly been mainstreamed now for lack of funds for special care).
Teachers work as hard as any human being can, and directly affect the lives of everybody in the country - and yet they're routinely despised and asked to sacrifice just a little bit more. It's no wonder so few people are still willing to do that work.
The same applies at the university level, of course, with increasing reliance on no-benefits adjunct workers paid chump change for a chance to "get into the profession" (as if there will ever be well-paid positions afterwards), and even full-time lecturers are not exactly paid huge amounts of cash - my wife has a PhD in physics and was just paid $35,000 for a one-year visiting professorship.
Special Education students are often mainstreamed not due to a lack of funding but due to the legal requirements written into their individualized education programs. While there is certainly benefit for many students with IEPs to being mainstreamed, much of it has to do with parents fighting with the school districts over their children being "labeled."
Teachers work as hard as any human being can, and directly affect the lives of everybody in the country - and yet they're routinely despised and asked to sacrifice just a little bit more. It's no wonder so few people are still willing to do that work.
The same applies at the university level, of course, with increasing reliance on no-benefits adjunct workers paid chump change for a chance to "get into the profession" (as if there will ever be well-paid positions afterwards), and even full-time lecturers are not exactly paid huge amounts of cash - my wife has a PhD in physics and was just paid $35,000 for a one-year visiting professorship.
Argh.