In Skrtic’s view, the social sciences have relied too heavily on an organizational approach known as functionalism to analyze the success or failure of bureaucratic organizations. For our purposes, consider the public school to be a bureaucratic organization as it is an entity designed to help implement the requirements of IDEA and other federal educational policies. Functionalism supposes that a bureaucratic organization is designed to be rational and efficient and any failures on the part of the organization are those that are pathological or intrinsic to certain individuals within the organization itself. In the context of students with disabilities Skrtic believes that the special education system, as implemented in most public schools, is meant to serve as a way of minimizing the impact of student failure on the school as a whole. In other words, a functionalist’s view of special education specifies that the failure of public schools to educate a child is the result of the child’s disability as opposed to the quality of instruction or other factors based solely in the school environment.
