I give the question a shot. I think they get extra funds for students classified with learning disabilities. Medication would not determine such. Basically schools have been forced to mainstream kids with learning disabilities into the regular class room.
During the Polio epidemic schools which also served as area physical rehabilitation centers were common even up into the mid 1980's. The kids got Physical, Occupational, and Speech Therapy while at the same time attending school. The schools were the forerunners to todays Special Education classes.
One kid would have Polio, another one MD, another one autism, deaf & deaf mute, even legally blind. Most kids ADD ADHD which was rare then were also there. The classes were small and school hours averaged 5 hours including therapy. The state and local school boards picked up the cost along with some federal dollars to treat Polio victims etc.
It actually was a great system that worked & didn't need fixing. It wasn't by any means a day care program either as the kids learned and got much needed help. I attended such a school myself for two years. It helped me to learn some coping or compensation skills I needed that later got me into the Navy and then the National Guards. Without it I would have flunked the physicals. Up till that point I had trouble walking a straight line without looking down. When I left it was a breeze forwards backwards sideways. But today I would not pass such a test if a police officer used it on me.
When the school systems sometime in the 1980's were taken to court by a small group of parents who wanted their kid mainstreamed, the schools became history as did much of the help that went with it. To compensate for the added students special needs the schools are given extra funding. ADD ADHD is considered a learning disability & the Ritalin has nothing to do with it actually.
Thanks for your input.......it makes a lot of sense the way you've outlined the situation. My concerns centered around the fact that so many of these schools systems seem to have such an unending lust for funds that it wouldn't have surprised me if there were cash incentives to unnecessarily classify kids as learning disabled.