As a parent of a kid that has special needs (at a minor level), there really is a separate set of skills needed to teach to these kids, as well as needing a better student teacher ratio. It made a huge difference for my kid.
Correct but the point is that the salaries of the developers are not treated as an expense to net out, they are treated as an asset that depreciates over some period of time.
(Even though some "developer" work might be day to day maintenance, rather than building a new feature.)