Gutting Special Ed Shows How Little America Thinks of Its Children

You can tell a lot about a society by how it treats its most vulnerable members—like its children. The ancient Egyptians thought children were gifts from the gods , and that they were protected by deities. Early West African cultures thought children were the reincarnated spirits of their ancestors. The U.S. showed what it thought about its children on December 14, 2012—the day of the Sandy Hook School massacre.

Many of us thought that the image of crying, blood-spattered 6 and 7 year olds, marching-in-train across a school parking lot would finally convince America’s gun owners to concede to meaningful gun reform. Nothing happened. Instead, the shootings continue, and gun violence has grown to become the No. 1 killer of children in America .

A similar indifference seems to insp