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Presentation by Chloe Kirby
Following Brown v. The Board of Education in 1954, many people advocated for more just educational practices for other disadvantaged communities. Congress addressed this rising concern in 1965 with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA. ESEA provided disadvantaged students with opportunities they had not had previously. In 1966, Congress amended this further to include more direct support for exceptional students. The goal was to provide “initiation, expansion, and improvement of programs and projects . . . for the education of handicapped children” (wrightslaw.com). This was one of the first government sanctioned initiatives for the welfare and improvement of education for special needs students.
Shortly after ESEA refinements, two more cases in the early 1970’s helped to shape special education in the U.S. These cases were Pennsylvania Assn. for Retarded Children v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (PARC) and Mills v. Board of Education of District of Columbia. PARC helped to incorporate parents in the educational decisions of special needs students. PARC also addressed the exclusion many of these students faced in public schools. Mills sparked controversy due to a public school treating exceptional students unfairly because of “the high cost of educating children with disabilities” (wrightslaw.com). Both of these cases led to a reevaluation of special education programs.
As a result of these two cases, Congress decided to investigate special education programs in the United States. The findings of this investigation were shocking. They found that, “of the more than 8 million children . . . with handicapping conditions requiring special education and related services, only 3.9 million such children are receiving an appropriate education. 1.75 million handicapped children are receiving no educational services at all, and 2.5 million handicapped children are receiving an inappropriate education” (wrightslaw.com). Congress members deemed this unacceptable, and acknowledged that many of these children could go on to become productive citizens with the proper support. This desire for continued advancement for exceptional children helped lead to Public Law 94-142.
In November of 1975, another groundbreaking advancement was made for special education in The Education for All Handicapped Children Act. This act ensured that all children with special needs, “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’ (wrightslaw.com). This law allowed children in special education to have fair educational opportunities, addressing the inequity brought up in the Mills case. In addition to this, they created a system of “checks and balances” to ensure that special education programs were protecting the rights of families with special needs.
No Child Left Behind, or NCLB, was another initiative that passed in 2001 with a goal of providing fair and equal opportunities to all children in the education system. This act was an upgrade to the former ESEA. NCLB had a particular emphasis on improving the resources and opportunities for children in disadvantaged groups, such as special education. This act also enacted provisions where all teachers in a classroom had to be “highly qualified” which helped ensure quality education for all students, both in general education and special education settings.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, abbreviated as IDEA, was another update to former laws for the welfare of special education students in the United States. In this update, “Congress increased the focus on accountability and improved outcomes by emphasizing reading, early intervention, and research-based instruction” (wrightslaw.com). IDEA helped to identify each child’s individual needs and enact an educational path that would meet those needs. Congress then made it a goal to bring IDEA into alignment with other educational reforms, such as NCLB, to create a cohesive and strong foundation for the success of exceptional children.