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I agree that the ideal situation would be to work away from the school. The programs that I'm familiar with in this area are self contained schools, not integrated with the mainstream. However, the article did say that this was the first time they'd done it in the school because they couldn't get businesses to participate. I don't think they meant any harm to the students, I think they were scrambling for work for the students to do and didn't think it through thoroughly.
As for having to train for 12 years to do this type of work... Many of these students spend far more than 12 years in school. A child with Down's Syndrome begins school at age 3 and is entitled to an education until age 26. Most that I've seen in Vocational Rehab were actually older than the students in this article... more like 19-26. It could have taken them until age 10 to speak clearly, to learn to dress themselves, to learn to eat with utensils, etc. They function at hugely varying degrees so you can't generalize. What takes you 5 minutes to learn very well may take them 5 years to learn. Recognizing and counting different denominations of money is taught around 1st or 2nd grade but some of these students may not be able to do it by age 18 even. Some are never able to learn these basic skills.
Dee
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