Copyright ? 1985 by Law and Contemporary Problems * Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Duke University. I am indebted to Chris Schroeder and Judith Wegner for their insights during numerous conversations I had with them while I was writing this article, and to Richard Boulden, Matt Lavine, and Howard Vingan for their research assistance. 1. Hicks, Should Every Bus Kneel? in DISABLED PEOPLE AS SECOND CLASS CITIZENS 13-14 (1982) (quoting Must Every Bus Kneel to the Disabled?, N.Y. Times, Nov. 18, 1979, at 18E). 2. See Oversight of P.L. 94-142 The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, Part 1: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Select Education of the Committee on Education and Labor House of Representatives, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. 82 (1979) (statement of Walter Tice, American Federation of Teachers); J. KAKALIK, W. FURRY, M. THOMAS & M. CARNEY, THE COST OF SPECIAL EDUCATION 5 (1981) [hereinafter cited as KAKALIK] ($3577 average cost per student for handicapped child in 1977-78; $4898 average cost in the following 3-year period). Residential placements, not included in the Kakalik study, are even more expensive. See Stark, Tragic Choices in Special Education: The Effect of Scarce Resources on the Implementation of Pub. L. No. 94-142, 14 CONN. L. REV. 477, 491, 493 (1982). A residential placement may cost well over $50,000 per year. See Clevenger v. Oak Ridge School Dist., 744 F.2d 514, 517 (6th Cir. 1984) (ordering residential placement costing $88,000 per year); Stanger v. Ambach, 501 F. Supp. 1237, 1241-42 (S.D.N.Y. 1980) (discussing residential placement that would cost at least $52,410 for the 1980-81 school year). 3. KAKALIK, supra note 2, at 339, 343. (This study noted that, depending on the type of handicap and educational placement (excluding residential placements), the cost of educating a handicapped child is between .49 (full-time work placement for learning disabled students) and 6.78 (regular class plus part-time special teacher) times the cost of educating a nonhandicapped child. See also M. MOORE, L. WALKER, & R. HOLLAND, FINETUNING SPECIAL EDUCATION FINANCE 50-51 (1982) [hereinafter cited as MOORE, WALKER & HOLLAND] (depending upon the type of handicap and method of computation, the cost of special education ranges from 1.37 to 5.86 times the cost of a regular education); Marriner, The Cost of Educating Handicapped Pupils in New York City, 3 J. EDUC. FIN. 82, 86-88 (1977) (average cost of special education was $5897 per student, compared to $2294 per student for a regular education; average per student cost of special education ranged from $4022 to $14,072, depending on the program). The factors considered in measuring the cost of special education are discussed in MOORE, WALKER & HOLLAND, supra, at 45-58.