TIMELINE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION

TIMELINE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION

1970- PARC and MILLS

1954-Brown vs Board of Education

2001- No Child Left Behind Act

1864- National College for the Deaf and Dumb

• In 2001, George W Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act
• This act required states to develop assessments in basic skills.
• All students including those with disabilities had to be proficient in math and reading by the year 2014.
• In order to receive federal school funding, states had to give these assessments to all students at select grade levels.
• (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act) (http://www.fortschools.org/m/content.cfm?subpage=62980)

• Two cases sparked for change: Pennsylvania Assn. for Retarded Children v.Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (PARC) and Mills v. Board of Education of District of Columbia (MILLS)
• PARC addressed issues with the exclusion of children with mental retardation from public schools. After it was agreed that educational placement decisions must include parents.
• Mills case was against the District of Columbia and declared that students with disabilities must be given a public education, and that financial limits should not stop the children from their education.

• Integration into public schools was introduced by Brown v. Board of Education.
• This case showed how all people regardless of race, gender or disability, have a right to a public education
• Parents began lawsuits against their schools for excluding their children because of their disability
• (http://www.wrightslaw.com/law/art/history.spec.ed.law.htm)

• Authorized with the signing of the law by Abraham Lincoln
• The first college to offer a degree for the deaf and dumb
• The College is renamed Gallaudet College in honor of the Rev. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.
• Gallaudet College then becomes Gallaudet University when Ronald Reagan signs the Education of the Deaf Act (Public Law 99-371).
• (http://www.gallaudet.edu/history/whats-in-a-name.html)

1953

1970

2000

2005

1864

1899- First Special Education Class

1965- Elementary and Secondary Education Act

1990- Americans with Disabilities Act

• Elizabeth E. Farrell an educational pioneer, she is the first person to teach a class of special education students in America, and for organizing the Council for Exceptional Children.
• Her first class was taught in New York City with 19 kids, 12 being mentally disabled
• Farrell eventually was director of special education and had around 10 classes
• She believed in special classes and not schools, to not exclude a child from a regular school
• (http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~duchan/new_history/hist19c/subpages/farrell.html)

• The ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life.
• ADA adopts the Section 504 regulations as part of the ADA statute.
• Numerous “504 Plans” for individual students start to become more common place in school districts.
• 504 plans help students with disabilities get on a general curriculum and overcome obstacles they may have
• (https://adata.org/learn-about-ada)

• Passed in 1965 by Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty" and has been the most far-reaching federal legislation affecting education ever passed by the United States Congress.
• Congress made this act for the inequality of educational opportunity for underprivileged children.
• This act ensured that those children had the resources for a quality education
• In 1970, congress enacted the Education of the Handicapped Act
• Grants and funds were established under this act
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_and_Secondary_Education_Act