Student-teacher ratio in the typical classroom is probably different than in the aggregate due to the nearly one-on-one teaching that goes on in special ed classrooms. I don’t know where those kids were 50 years ago, but they weren’t in school. These are not kids who just need a little remedial instruction, but kids with severe handicaps that will probably prevent them from ever being employed. Many will need to be in custodial care for their entire lives. I feel sorry for these kids and their families, but I also question the amount of education dollars that are allocated to them.
I have a friend that taught second grade in an inner-city school; he had “students” who would refer to a book as “that” or “that thing”. They literally had never seen, or used the word for, books; the fact is that a growing number of households simply don’t “have books” in them.
Teachers are filled with a million excuses as to why their students are impossible to educate (that bear no reflection on the teachers themselves); rather than debate the point with them, I tell them they should simply draw a daycare worker’s salary (with no education requirements at all for the job) and stop wasting money that could be better spent on children born to loving, caring parents that actually care about their education.
This comes not only from "mainstreaming" but also multiculturalism. It's been going on for years. Now the products of this ed philosophy are teaching in schools and colleges. Go figure.
(Not deliberately putting a values wrench on this, just stating a difference between now and the days of, say, schools in late 19th to mid-20th century, and now.)