I Am Not A Special Ed Teacher...But I play one in the Classroom

The following is an exchange I recently had with one of my students who is in a 32 student regular ed class(modified of course, to be blog freindly):

The Question my freshmen goverment class was pondering after reading notes and a brief activity about Democracy and the Supreme Court:

Is the Supreme Court a Democratic institution?

Student: I have a question about this assignment
ME: getting up close and personal: What can I do for you?
Student: I don't understand this... what is Democratic??
ME: Well, lets look at your notes from yesterday.
Student: I lost them [ Somwhere between the shelf and the desk they were misplaced..and indeed we could not locate them anywhere.]
ME: Ok, so where should we go next?
Student: ?[Blank stare]?
ME: Lets look it up. Here it is in the book "democracy" and "democratic".
Student: Now What?
ME [Sensing trouble]: Why don't you just write down the definition and we'll go from there...
Student: Write what down?
ME: The definition of Democracy.
Student: Oh, where?
ME: On your paper is a good place.
Student:OK... [nothing happens]
ME: Go ahead and do it.
Student: Do What??

As I diverted my attention to this student guess what was going on with the other 31, many of whom have there own "issues".

Rant that went on in my head as my face almost melted off of my skull:
I AM NOT A SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER ! WHY DO I HAVE SPECIAL ED KIDS IN MY REGUALR ED CLASSES?
Oh yeah, large effective special ed departments cost money. Never mind the cost to the kids who are being under served by "mainstreaming". Never mind the fact that most of that money is being redirected into programs that are designed to increase the test scores of regular ed students!