by LynNell Hancock

About the author: LynNell Hancock is a general editor at Newsweek.

It’s a federal program crafted with the most generous of intentions: to help severely disabled children living in poverty. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) money could pay for day care, extra utility bills, wheelchairs. For nearly 20 years, however, only the most extreme cases received the aid, which averaged about $400 a month. Then, in 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that too many kids who needed help were being left out of the money. Since then, thousands of kids who needed federal help got it. But even this act of civic decency did not remain uncorrupted. An army of parents has marched on schools across the land demanding that their children be tagged disabled so they can reap the financial rewards...