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The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), is one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history. The ADA is a civil rights law that protects disabled people by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability. One demonstration that proved how needed this legislation was, was the Capitol Crawl. This was a protest in Washington DC where a mass of mobility aid users abandoned their canes, crutches, and wheelchairs at the base of the Capitol Hill steps and crawled their way up to the building. It was a demonstration to prove that accessibility was necessary across the nation and in every facet of American life. Even though there is much advocacy left for the disabled community, the ADA is one of the most important protections people had been granted in the history of this country.
This Supreme Court case interprets the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. The Board of Education refused to provide an interpreter to deaf student, Amy Rowley, citing that she can have accomodations in her IEP but the BOE is not required to provide all points of the IEP accomodations. Even though the language of the law has changed through the implementation of later laws like IDEA and No Child Left Behind, and even though Rowley lost the case, this is still an instrumental case having been the first Supreme Court case to advocate specifically for disability education.
The No Child Left Behind Act was pushed and passed during the presidency of George W Bush. The purpose of the act was to establish a system that held individual schools accountable for the success of students. This was done by implementing standardized testing, performance benchmarks, and the establishment of Title I schools. These implementations have made it easier to collect data on student success, but has changed the way teachers educate their students, switching from teaching to the standards and what students need to konw, to teaching to the test and testing strategies. To speak from personal experience, students with learning disablilites have since struggled with learning and retaining material because of the increased emphasis on teaching to the test instead of teaching with the purpose to learn.
The Every Student Succeeds Ace (ESSA) was signed into law by President Barack Obama, as a replacement for the No Child Left Behind Act, both of them being reauthorizations of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Act. One of the main differences between ESSA and NCLB is that instead of standardized reporting being sent to the federal level, the reports will go to the state Education Department, which will delegate the state results to the federal government. ESSA also revises the Common Core standards, but not by much. It is the most current version of the educational law in regards to the EASA, NCLB, and ESSA legislation.
The Rehabilitation Act was initially published in 1973. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is a civil rights law granting protections to disabled people. It prevents organizations, institutions, and employers to prevent disabled people from being provided equal opportunities, and requires said organizations to provide accomodations for disabled workers, students, volunteers, etc. A student's 504 Plan is similar to an IEP, but they are protected rights under different laws. The Individualized with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the federal law that protects an IEP plan, while Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is what protects a 504 Plan. Unlike an IEP, which is exclusive to an educational environment, a 504 Plan can protect you in both an educational and profressional work setting.
Justice William Brennan (top left), Justice Byron White (top right), and Justice Thurgood Marshall (bottom right) were the three dessenting opinions of the case
Venn Diagram graphic provided by Hopkinton Special Education Parental Advisory Council
This case involved a man named Tom Freston, who enrolled his son, Gilbert, in a private institution for students with special needs, while getting restitution for the tuition from the New York City Board of Education. The BOE offered Freston a place for Gilbert in the public school system, which he declined and continued to send his son to private school. This resulted in a lawsuit from the BOE, having been paying restitution to a child that had never been in the public school system, and thus was not entitled to tuition restitution in accordance with IDEA. The Supreme Court had an even split of a 4-4 vote, with Justice Kennedy deciding not to vote. The court case has remained inconclusive.
In the case of Florence County v Shannon Carter, the parents of Shannon Carter sued the Florence County school district for not providing a "free and appropriate" education through Carter's IEP according to IDEA. The school district found the IEP adequate, the Carters moved Shannon to a private school, and asked for compensation, which they were denied. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Carter, claiming that parents have a right to withdraw their child from school of they are recieving inadequate education as long as the private school that Carter gets re-enrolled in does provide that education.
According to the United States Department of Education, the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, also known as FERPA, is "a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records." Some examples of the offered protection included in the explanation from the DoE are that parents and students have the right to see the students' educational records maintained by the school, they have the right to request a correct record if they find it to be incorrect. In the context of SPED, this could also include a parental request to recieve up-to-date copies of IEP and 504 paperwork, updated grades like report cards, and progress monitoring paperwork according to the students' case worker.
The court case of Irving Independent School District v Amber Tatro was a discussion on whether or not medical services act as part of the "related services" in the school system. The Supreme Court decision was unanimous in favor of Tatro, claiming that because Clean Intermettent Catheterization (CIC) is necessary for Amber Tatro to live a normal, comfortable, life, she would need to be medically accomodated for in the classroom, which would in turn, be a related service.
Amber Tatro, pictured here, standing in front of the Supreme Court.
Even though the decision of Brown v Board of Education had the intention of desegregating schools on the basis of race, the monumental decision also opened the doors to allowing students with disabilities to explore their rights to education and fight for equality in their treatment in the education system. The Supreme Court decision was not explicitly about disability access, but it sets a precedent for what disability advocates can expect in their fight for equal access in the classroom, making this court case monumental to the history of disability in schools.