Well, yeah, budgets are beginning to affect Special Education decisions, but sometimes this is a good thing. Depending on the local budget structure and parent wishes, some disabled students sit in pull-out classrooms for years that would really benefit from being with their non-disabled peers.
For example, in my state, a school's Special Education budget has been separate from the school's general budget, and has been determined by the number of students and the intensity of their needs (expressed in hours of services). Schools have had a financial disincentive to move kids into more general education classes or out of special education altogether. Add to that the pressure of parents that do not want anything taken away from their children, and you do often end up with an inappropriate placement.
When a team meets to make that kind of decision, the needs of the child are supposed to be the driving factor, not available resources. But those decisions are made by humans, and humans have all kinds of motivations.
I'm a general education teacher, one who has been more heavily involved in the files of disabled students than most. I appreciate having Special Education students in my classroom. A small fraction of them can be disruptive, but the same is true of the rest of the students.
My experience has been that having (properly placed) disabled students and English Language Learners in the general education classroom is of enormous benefit to those students, with no significant impact on the achievement of other students. Sometimes an annoyance, but most students are blissfully unaware that their neighbors have an IEP and some special education classes.
And to be honest, sometimes adults do things in school that are more disruptive than what most Special Education students do. Having a functional school with appropriate supports--and a solid understanding of those supports on the part of the teachers--makes a huge difference in general.
