Do you think there's a difference between these two statements:

i. We should spend less money on educating would-be gangsters and more money education would-be scientists.

ii. My plan would produce more scientists and fewer criminals?

>Expelling a student for hitting a teacher is {the moment something bad happens}.

Hitting people is a severe violation of liberal norms. We can get rid of those norms, but where do we draw the line? Should parents be allowed to hit teachers?

And why do you put the burden on the school to teach students things that are clearly right and wrong? It's not about criminalizing kids, it's about punishing criminals for their transgressions. Kids can be criminals.

I'm game for a gun control discussion. There are at least 300 million firearms in this country, the only way to keep them out of criminal hands is to grab them all. Who's going to grab the guns? NPR listeners?

The ROI of education is this: incremental lifetime earnings / cost of education. Use the t-bills as a guidance on discount rate.

Your needling for sources is derailing this discussion. If you don't get why someone might think special education is overfunded, go visit a special ed classroom and wonder "how much does it cost society to give these kids places to drool on each other?".