Special Education Timeline

May 17, 1954

Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka

The Supreme Court decided during this court case that it was unconstitutional to segregate children by race in schools. It was the first "landmark legal ruling" that first set a precedent for special education and what was to come for them. This case proved that segregation had a detrimental effect upon the black children since they had less oppurtunities and benefits in their school than the white schools had. Segregation of races having detrimental effects will go on to also have the same effect upon people with special needs being segregated.

April 9, 1965

Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act was enacted by Congress in order to fight the inequality for underprivileged children in education. This legislation made sure students in poverty had equal access to proper education and called for federal funding for education for students affected by poverty. It was later amended in 1966 to establish a grant program to assist the states in programs for handicapped children.

October 8, 1971

Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) vs Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

During this court case, the exclusion of children with mental retardation from public schools was being fought. The U.S. District of Pennsylvania sided with the children and put into law that students with intellectual and learning disabilities were able to be placed in publicly funded school settings in which their individual and educational needs were being met which would vary student to student. This was a great advancement for the special education area so they were no longer being put in state-run institutions.

December 17, 1971

Mills vs Board of Education of District of Columbia

Before this ruling, students with "exceptionalities" or students with mental or learning disabilities or behavioral issues were being denied funded educational oppurtunities due to it beingapparently too expensive to educate these students. This ruling made it unlawful to deny these students access to educational oppurtunities that were publicly funded.

Congressional Investigation of 1972

After the wave of the PARC and Mills ruling, Congress was curious just how many special education students' needs were being unmet. During the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped's investigation it was fond that out of 8 million children requiring some type of special education, 3.9 million of them had their educational needs adequately met, 2.5 million were receiving substandard education and 1.75 million were not even enrolled in any type of educational program or in school.

November 29, 1975

Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142)

During Gerald Ford's presidency, he signed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act to ensure that all children with disabilities would "have a right to education, and to establish a process by which State and local educational agencies may be held accountable for providing educational services for all handicapped children." This also put a system of checks and balances called procedural safegaurds to protect the rights of the children and their parents within this act.

October 8, 1976

Public Law 99-457

Public Law 99-457 was an amendment to the All Handicapped Children Act which was signed a year prior. This amendment made it mandatory for states to provide services to families of disabled children from the time of birth while previous to this, services usually were not offered until the child was 3 years old.

1982

Board of Education of Hendrick Hudson Central School District vs Rowley

This court case made a mark in history as it was the very first special education case to land in the U.S. Supreme Court. The court ended up ruling that students who are qualifying of special education must have access to public school programs along with the programs having to accomodate services the students may need. This also gave parents the oppurtunity for their child to have an IEP that was reasonably calculated to their learning abilities.

1985

Burlington School Commitee v. Massachusetts Board of Education

For the very first time, the court ruled during the Burlington School Commitee v Massachusetts Board of Education that parents of students in special education are to be reimbursed for their expenditures for private special education. This required them to be reimbursed for tuition and other expenses when the IEP was not adequately met and the children's needs were not met.

August 6, 1986

Handicapped Children's Protection Act

During President Reagan's presidency, he signed the Handicapped Children's Protection Act into law that allowed parents with children that have disabilities to have more say in their child's IEP and the development of their IEP throughout their educational journey.

June 4, 1990

Education for all Handicapped Children's Act becomes Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA)

Formerly known as the Education for All Handicapped Children's Act, it became the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or also known as IDEA. President Clinton changed the name and repurposed it to include amendments that emphasized having the same curriculum be taught to all students and gave the states ability to expand "development delays" from birth to 5, to birth through 9.