The Funding Facade

 

Let me be clear: education is chronically underfunded. That is a fact. But funding alone will not fix a system that was never built to include all students in the first place.

It’s easy to believe the myth that if we just had more money, everything would be better. But the truth is more uncomfortable. Even if budgets increased, students would still be excluded. Parents would still be told, “We don’t have the resources.” Children, especially those who are disabled, would still be isolated, suspended, and pushed out of spaces that claim to be inclusive.

Why? Because our education system is designed for efficiency, not equity. It pushes students through a standardized mold, assuming that children of the same age are more alike than different. It attaches a dollar amount to disability and uses funding categories based on a diagnosis as a gatekeeper to basic support. It structures classrooms around teaching conditions rather than student rights. It convinces parents that their child can only attend part of the day because the child is too dysregulated, without acknowledging that the environment is dysregulating by design.

Our schools still uphold a compliance model. Certain behaviours are rewarded. The illusion of “normal” is reinforced. Belonging is conditional, dependent on a child’s ability to mask, conform, and perform. Belonging is not the same as fitting in. Accommodations are treated as extras. Diversity is reduced to a theme week or a hallway poster, while ableism continues to walk boldly down the hall, shaping policies, practices, and pedagogy.

Even well-meaning attempts to support students fall short. We add more adults, launch new programs, and increase documentation without pausing to ask the deeper questions. Do our structures actually support inclusion? Do our values reflect the dignity and rights of every learner?

Because here is the truth:
We cannot hire our way out of exclusion.
We cannot fund our way out of ableism.
We cannot train our way out of a system that was never designed to hold all children.

Yes, we need significant increases in education funding. Teachers are exhausted. Support staff are stretched thin. Students are struggling in ways that cannot be ignored. But no amount of money will make schools inclusive if we do not confront the deeper issues—our beliefs, our policies, and the way we define inclusion.

We must stop pretending that budget increases will magically create equity while the foundation of the system remains untouched. Inclusion is not about adding more programs or positions. It is about dismantling the barriers that were built into the system itself. It means shifting from a model of fixing kids to one that interrogates the environments and structures that exclude them.

We need to face the fact that many of our schools still value control over connection. That “normal” is still treated as the gold standard. That diversity is welcomed only when it does not disrupt. That accommodations are provided reluctantly, as though access is optional.

So yes—advocate for more funding. But don’t stop there.

Demand transparency. Demand equity-based budgeting. Demand that we stop pouring public money into systems that continue to exclude. Let’s invest in transformation, not compliance. Let’s fund care, connection, and creativity rather than control.

Because an inclusive education system isn’t something we can buy our way into.

It’s something we have to build together, from the ground up.