Issues in Special Education

What a wacky way to find out information about special education issues.  I didn't know what to expect when I began asking parents, general education and SPED teachers, policy makers, SPED supervisors, and administrators about issues in SPED and how to solve them.  I was floored at how much I could communicate with the Supervisor of Special Education.  Funding issues were her main concern and I found it easy to elaborate or understand everything she discussed. It was a great conversation.  The administrator answered very short much like the SPED teacher, but answered the questions regardless.  The parents seemed a little confused by the questions and I had to give a little input on different issues.
The question/answer scenario that surprised me was the general education teacher.  The teacher discussed the issue of ELL/ESL learners.  I didn't want to interject and ruin the interview and I'm glad I didn't.  The teacher explained the difficulties of teaching students who have little knowledge of the English language and requested that they be sent to a class that taught them English.  After they learn the basics of English, they should be sent to her.  This is a problem, but it is not a Special Education problem.  While the teacher was talking, I remember writing about my SPED case involving foreign language speakers and how they tested poorly because they couldn't read English.  The students that tested poorly were placed in special education and termed menatlly retarded.  The case was called "Diana vs. California" and ruled that these students were to have directions and questions read to them while taking the test. Once they were given the test orally, the students scores increased dramatically and were taken out of Special Ed. 
The reason that I was amazed at the teacher's response is that the issues that affected this teacher were not special education issues in the first place.  This school promotes inclusion and there are several students participating in the class.  I thought I would get a good idea of issues revolving around special education, but I got a good idea about the difficulty of teaching English language learners.  Not that this is a bad thing, it just surprised me.