I think before lumping all people in an area as hopeless entities, there needs to be a person by person, household by household assessment of their skills, health, desire for training and work....if you have a 62 year old and you have a 20 year old, other things being equal, train the 20 year old. At some point too you have to look at the education money in special education and the results it may or may not get with the most mentally handicapped students. I mean way worse than mildly retarded. I do know that some even fairly severely retarded can be productive, but when you look at the resources that are sometimes spent, especially disproportionate in small districts, on very few students, with no realistic hope of anything really...I would say make them comfortable and happy and put the money, the same amount of money into educating dozens if not hundreds of non-handicapped but disadvantaged and uninspired youth. At some point you have to look at return on public investment, and if you can get hundreds of people off public money, and they in turn support the seriously mentally handicapped..isn't everyone better off? I know this will horrify parents of special needs students, but if I had limited funds I would train the mentally non-handicapped first and foremost...mg