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| A Brief History of Special Education |
It sounds like something that Hitler did in Germany, they are doing right here in our country, to our own people, by our own people. Kind of scary and inhuman, wouldn't you agree?
Today, this method of treatment is clearly unacceptable.Concerned and angry parents have thus formed groups to help bring the educational needs of children with disabilities to the public. The public had to see first hand how bad this eugenics and sterilization movement was for our students who were different if it was ever going to be stopped.
A Brief History of Special Education
For example, in 1930 in Peoria, Illinois, the first white cane ordinance gave blind people the right of way when crossing the street. That was the beginning and other states eventually followed. Over time, this grassroots and state movement led to enough pressure on our elected officials to do something for our people with disabilities on a national level.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy created the President's Panel on Mental Retardation. And in 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which provided funding for elementary education and is seen as expanding access to public education for children with disabilities.
When you consider Kennedy's and Johnson's record on civil rights, it's perhaps not that surprising to learn that these two presidents also spearheaded this national movement for our people with disabilities.
This federal movement led to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. After all these years as an educator, I personally deal with 504 cases every day.
In 1975, Congress passed Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA), which established the right to a public education for all children regardless of disability. Rowley, the US Supreme Court clarified the level of services to be provided to students with special needs. The court ruled that special education services must provide only some "educational benefit" to students.
Today, this decision may not seem like a victory, and in fact, this same issue is circulating through our courts again today, in 2017. However, given the time period in which it was issued, it was a victory because it said special education students could not pass through our school system. without learning anything. They had to learn something. If one knows and understands how laws work in this country, then one knows that laws always proceed in tiny little increments that add up over time. The decision was a victory for special education students as it added another rung to the crusade.
In the 1980s, the Regular Education Initiative (REI) was established. It was an attempt to return the responsibility for the education of students with disabilities to the surrounding schools and ordinary classroom teachers. I am very familiar with the regular education initiative, having spent four years as an REI teacher in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During this time, I was certified as a special education teacher and a general education teacher and worked in both capacities in a dual role as an REI teacher; because it was required of the position.
This was and is the cornerstone of the Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) concept for all of our students. In order to provide FAPE, the law mandated that any student who uses special education services must also receive an Individualized Education Program (IEP).
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 went beyond public schools. And Title 3 of the IDEA prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability in any place of public accommodation. Full and equal enjoyment of goods, services, facilities or accommodation in public places was expected. And of course public accommodation also included most educational places.
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