It's happening in public schools, and this blogger makes some interesting assertions that go to the root of the problems with public schools (to wit, they're part of a bureaucracy, and the bureaucratic mindset infiltrates):
Schools get extra funds for every kid on a special plan. To get a kid on a special plan they must be diagnosed with something. Take any high energy kid and you can easily find a doctor willing to diagnose them with ADD/ADHD/etc. And the school is eager to help. They provided us with references to doctors known to give these diagnoses, and provided documentation to help the doctor realize just how critical it was to get this kid drugs. That $$ is critical for the school's shrinking budget!
Thing about public schools is, most of the teachers and administrators really try to put the bureaucratic garbage away and deal with the children first (at least the ones I've run across). They're sincere. But as anyone knows who has studied bureaucracy (start with von Mises, if you want to delve in heavily), it can't be resisted. It will infiltrate; it will poison; children will suffer.
Most people realize that bureaucracies are horrible institutions. They criticize them in everyday conversation; they fumigate against them when they're caught in one.
Yet the same people seem to think it's different when it comes to the public schools. I suspect it's because the "front men" of the public schools--the teachers and principals--make a good impression, with the result that parents are (perhaps unintentionally, perhaps not) duped. You'd think the parents would be doubly careful, given that their children are involved, but they aren't. I suspect one of the reasons: public schools are so easy to access. They require little or no effort or expense by the parents because the taxpayers lavish money on them. But that's another problem that'll have to await a different post.
