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History
Twenty-Five Years of Progress in Educating Children with Disabilities
Through IDEA
Hector is a charming, outgoing, very active, six-year-old Hispanic child
who lives with his family and attends his neighborhood school in Arizona.
Early in 1st grade, Hector participated in a new behavioral program to
address his sudden mood swings and frequent arguments and fights – both
during class and on the playground. His teacher taught Hector specific
social skills to improve his competence in such areas as answering
questions, controlling his anger, and getting along with others. While
working in a small cooperative group with three other students, Hector was
able to observe firsthand other children who behaved properly at school.
By the end of 1st grade, Hector’s behavior had changed dramatically. Hector
was appropriately engaged and worked hard to complete his academic
assignments each day. His behavior on the playground improved as well.
Rather than respond impetuously, Hector kept his temper and played
cooperatively with the other children. No longer viewed as a disruptive
student, Hector, and his family, now looks forward to a bright future with
realistic hopes for continued success and high achievement in 2nd grade and
beyond.
Congress enacted the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law
94-142), in 1975, to support states and localities in protecting the rights
of, meeting the individual needs of, and improving the results for Hector
and other infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities and their
families. This landmark law, whose 25th Anniversary we celebrate this year,
is currently enacted as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
(IDEA), as amended in 1997.
In the 25 years since the passage of Public Law 94-142, significant progress
has been made toward meeting major national goals for developing and
implementing effective programs and services for early intervention, special
education, and related services. Before IDEA, many children like Hector were
denied access to education and opportunities to learn. For example, in 1970,
U.S. schools educated only one in five children with disabilities, and many
states had laws excluding certain students, including children who were
deaf, blind, emotionally disturbed, or mentally retarded.
Today, early intervention programs and services are provided to almost
200,000 eligible infants and toddlers and their families, while nearly 6
million children and youth receive special education and related services to
meet their individual needs. Other accomplishments directly attributable to
IDEA include educating more children in their neighborhood schools, rather
than in separate schools and institutions, and contributing to improvements
in the rate of high school graduation, post-secondary school enrollment, and
post-school employment for youth with disabilities who have benefited from
IDEA.
Examples of IDEA Accomplishments
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The majority of children with disabilities are now being educated in their
neighborhood schools in regular classrooms with their non-disabled peers.
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High school graduation rates and employment rates among youth with
disabilities have increased dramatically. For example, graduation rates
increased by 14 percent from 1984 to 1997. Today, post-school employment
rates for youth served under IDEA are twice those of older adults with
similar disabilities who did not have the benefit of IDEA.
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Post-secondary enrollments among individuals with disabilities receiving
IDEA services have also sharply increased. For example, the percentage of
college freshmen reporting disabilities has more than tripled since 1978.
The promising future of Hector and other children with disabilities and
their families stands in sharp contrast to conditions before IDEA. These
last 25 years have witnessed significant changes as the nation has moved
from paying little or no attention to the special needs of individuals with
disabilities, to merely accommodating these individuals’ basic needs, and
eventually to providing programs and services for all children with
disabilities and their families.
Conditions Before IDEA
Before the enactment of Public Law 94-142, the fate of many individuals with
disabilities was likely to be dim. Too many individuals lived in state
institutions for persons with mental retardation or mental illness. In 1967,
for example, state institutions were homes for almost 200,000 persons with
significant disabilities. Many of these restrictive settings provided only
minimal food, clothing, and shelter. Too often, persons with disabilities,
such as Allan, were merely accommodated rather than assessed, educated, and
rehabilitated.
Allan’s Story
Allan was left as an infant on the steps of an institution for persons with
mental retardation in the late 1940s. By age 35, he had become blind and was
frequently observed sitting in a corner of the room, slapping his heavily
callused face as he rocked back and forth humming to himself.
In the late 1970s, Allan was assessed properly for the first time. To the
dismay of his examiners, he was found to be of average intelligence; further
review of his records revealed that by observing fellow residents of the
institution, he had learned self-injurious behavior that caused his total
loss of vision.
Although the institution then began a special program to teach Allan to be
more independent, a major portion of his life was lost because of a lack of
appropriate assessments and effective interventions.
Unfortunately, Allan’s history was repeated in the life experiences of tens
of thousands of individuals with disabilities who lacked support from IDEA.
Inaccurate tests led to inappropriately labeling and ineffectively educating
most children with disabilities. Providing appropriate education to
youngsters from diverse cultural, racial, and ethnic backgrounds was
especially challenging. Further, most families were not afforded the
opportunity to be involved in planning or placement decisions regarding
their child, and resources were not available to enable children with
significant disabilities to live at home and receive an education at
neighborhood schools in their community.
Initial Federal Response
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Federal government, with the strong support and
advocacy of family associations, such as The ARC, began to develop and
validate practices for children with disabilities and their families. These
practices, in turn, laid the foundation for implementing effective programs
and services of early intervention and special education in states and
localities across the country.
There are numerous illustrations of key early Federal legislation that
supported improved programs and services. Notable examples include the
Training of Professional Personnel Act of 1959 (PL 86-158), which helped
train leaders to educate children with mental retardation; the Captioned
Films Acts of 1958 (PL 85-905), the training provisions for teachers of
students with mental retardation (PL 85-926), and 1961 (PL 87-715), which
supported the production and distribution of accessible films; and the
Teachers of the Deaf Act of 1961 (PL 87-276), which trained instructional
personnel for children who were deaf or hard of hearing. PL 88-164 expanded
previous specific training programs to include training across all
disability areas. In addition, in 1965, the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (PL 89-10) and the State Schools Act (PL 89-313) provided
states with direct grant assistance to help educate children with
disabilities. Finally, the Handicapped Children’s Early Education Assistance
Act of 1968 (PL 90-538) and the Economic Opportunities Amendments of 1972
(PL 92-424) authorized support for, respectively, exemplary early childhood
programs and increased Head Start enrollment for young children with
disabilities. These and other critical Federal laws began to open doors of
opportunity for children with disabilities and their families.
Key Milestones
By 1968, the Federal government had supported:
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Training for more than 30,000 special education teachers and related
specialists;
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Captioned films viewed by more than 3 million persons who were deaf; and
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Education for children with disabilities in preschools and in elementary,
secondary, and state-operated schools across the country.
Landmark court decisions further advanced increased educational
opportunities for children with disabilities. For example, the Pennsylvania
Association for Retarded Citizens v. Commonwealth (1971) and Mills v. Board
of Education of the District of Columbia (1972) established the
responsibility of states and localities to educate children with
disabilities. Thus, the right of every child with a disability to be
educated is grounded in the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to
the United States Constitution.
Public Law 94-142
Public Law 94-142 guaranteed a free, appropriate public education to each
child with a disability in every state and locality across the country.
The four purposes of the law articulated a compelling national mission to
improve access to education for children with disabilities. (See side bar:
Four Purposes of PL 94-142.) Changes implicit in the law included efforts to
improve how children with disabilities were identified and educated, to
evaluate the success of these efforts, and to provide due process
protections for children and families. In addition, the law authorized
financial incentives to enable states and localities to comply with Public
Law 94-142.
Four Purposes of PL 94-142
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"to assure that all children with disabilities have available to them…a free
appropriate public education which emphasizes special education and related
services designed to meet their unique needs"
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"to assure that the rights of children with disabilities and their
parents…are protected"
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"to assist States and localities to provide for the education of all
children with disabilities"
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"to assess and assure the effectiveness of efforts to educate all children
with disabilities"
Source: Education for All Handicapped Children’s Act of 1975
Public Law 94-142 was a response to Congressional concern for two groups of
children: the more than 1 million children with disabilities who were
excluded entirely from the education system and the children with
disabilities who had only limited access "to the education system and were
therefore denied an appropriate education. This latter group comprised more
than half of all children with disabilities who were living in the United
States at that time. These issues of improved access became guiding
principles for further advances in educating children with disabilities over
the last quarter of the 20th Century.
First 25 Years of Progress
To achieve our national goals for access to education for all children with
disabilities, a number of special issues and special populations have
required Federal attention. These national concerns are reflected in a
number of key amendments to the Education for the Handicapped Act (EHA) and
IDEA between 1975 and 1997.
The 1980s saw a national concern for young children with disabilities and
their families. While Public Law 94-142 mandated programs and services for
children 3 to 21 years that were consistent with state law, the 1986
Amendments (PL 99-457) to EHA mandated that states provide programs and
services from birth.
Through such sustained Federal leadership, the United States today is the
world leader in early intervention and preschool programs for infants,
toddlers, and preschool children with disabilities. These programs prepare
young children with disabilities to meet the academic and social challenges
that lie ahead of them, both while in school and in later life.
Examples of Early Childhood Accomplishments
IDEA has supported the development, validation, and widespread use of:
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State-of-the-art models of appropriate programs and services for young
children with disabilities (birth – five years) and their families;
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Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs) to identify and meet the unique
needs of each infant and toddler with a disability and his or her family;
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Effective assessment and teaching practices and related instructional
materials for young children and their families;
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National network of professionals dedicated to improving early intervention
and preschool education at the state and local levels; and
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Collaborating with other Federal, state and local agencies to avoid
duplication of efforts in providing early intervention and preschool
education.
At the other end of the childhood age continuum, IDEA has supported the
preparation of students for vocational success through new and improved
transition programs. The 1983 Amendments to EHA (PL 98-199), the 1990
Amendments to EHA (PL 101-476), which changed the name to the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and the IDEA Amendments of 1997 (PL
105-17) supported initiatives for transition services from high school to
adult living. Because of these mandates, each student’s Individualized
Education Program (IEP) must include transition plans or procedures for
identifying appropriate employment and other postschool adult living
objectives for the student; referring the student to appropriate community
agencies; and linking the student to available community resources,
including job placement and other follow-up services. The IEP must also
specifically designate who is responsible for each transition activity.
Finally, the 1997 Amendments to IDEA specified that transition planning
should begin at age 14.
The nation has also been concerned, over the last 25 years, with expanding
the opportunities for educating children with disabilities in the least
restrictive environment. For example, in the early 1980s, IDEA supported
several Severely Handicapped Institutes to develop and validate effective
approaches for integrating children with significant disabilities with their
non-disabled family members at home and their non-disabled classmates at
school. Such model projects as the Badger School Program, in Madison,
Wisconsin, demonstrated an effective system to teach such children the
skills they needed to lead independent and productive lives. Through such
efforts, today, millions of children with significant disabilities are
attending their neighborhood schools and learning the life skills they will
need for full, active participation in integrated activities with their
family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.
IDEA has supported the provision of culturally relevant instruction for
diverse learners in mainstreamed environments. Throughout the 1980s,
IDEA-supported Minority Handicapped Research Institutes documented that
culturally and linguistically diverse students with disabilities make, at
best, limited progress in school programs that employ "watered-down"
instruction in segregated environments. Building on and extending the work
of these institutes, IDEA has supported the development and validation of
culturally relevant assessment and intervention practices. (See side bar:
Culturally Relevant Instructional Principles.) For example, the Juniper
Garden Project at the University of Kansas has demonstrated instructional
practices, such as classwide peer tutoring and cooperative learning, that
help African American students, English language learners, and other diverse
students become more actively involved in their academic assignments. As
Hector’s story illustrates, increased academic engagement leads, in turn, to
improved learning and higher achievement.
Culturally Relevant Instructional Principles
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Link assessments of student progress directly to the instructional curricula
rather than to abstract norms for standardized tests.
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Examine not only the individual child but also his or her instructional
environment, using direct observational data.
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Create classroom environments that reflect different cultural heritages and
accommodate different styles of communication and learning.
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Develop and implement family-friendly practices to establish collaborative
partnerships with parents and other caregivers, including those who do not
speak English.
From the beginning of special education legislation, families of children
with disabilities have been considered important partners in meeting the
needs of children with disabilities. IDEA includes key principles to guide
families and professionals to work together to enhance the educational
opportunities for their children. IDEA requires active parent participation
throughout the educational process including the development of the child’s
Individualized Educational Program. In addition, IDEA 1997 mandates that
schools report progress to parents of children with disabilities as
frequently as they report to parents of non-disabled children. The overall
goal is to maintain an equal and respectful partnership between schools and
families.
Finally, IDEA has continued the long-standing Federal commitment to provide
an adequate supply of qualified teachers. Today, hundreds of thousands of
professionals specializing in early childhood and special education are
being trained with IDEA support. These professionals include early
intervention staff, classroom teachers, therapists, counselors,
psychologists, program administrators, and other professionals who will work
with future generations of children with disabilities and their families.
Over the last 25 years, IDEA has supported states and localities in meeting
their identified challenges for personnel preparation. For example, IDEA
supported local communities that were developing and implementing early
childhood programs; schools serving students with low-incidence
disabilities, such as children who are blind or deaf or children with autism
or traumatic brain injury; and schools in rural or large urban areas, where
financial and other resources are often scarce.
IDEA has supported projects that demonstrate how states and localities can
successfully meet challenges to staff recruitment and retention. For
example, the National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (NEC*TAS),
located at the University of North Carolina, helps build national commitment
and capacity for hiring qualified early intervention staff and providing
family-centered, community-based, coordinated, interagency services for
young children with disabilities and their families across the country.
Similarly, Vermont’s personnel preparation program helps prepare teachers to
meet the needs of students with low-incidence disabilities in rural public
schools and other community settings. These and other IDEA-supported
projects around the country are innovative models that other states and
localities should consider replicating as part of their own programs of
personnel preparation.
Charting the Next 25 Years of Progress
The next 25 years of the 21st century provide an opportunity to ensure that
educational improvements for all children include infants, toddlers,
children, and youth with disabilities. Whereas Public Law 94-142 issued a
national challenge to ensure access to education for all children with
disabilities, the 1997 Amendments to IDEA articulated a new challenge to
improve results for these children and their families.
To meet this challenge, IDEA must build on its previous support for equality
of access and continue to expand and strengthen its support for quality
programs and services. Improving educational results for children with
disabilities requires a continued focus on the full implementation of IDEA
to ensure that each student’s educational placement and services are
determined on an individual basis, according to the unique needs of each
child, and are provided in the least restrictive environment. The focus must
be on teaching and learning that use individualized approaches to accessing
the general education curriculum and that support learning and high
achievement for all.
We know, after 25 years, that there is no easy or quick fix to the
challenges of educating children with disabilities. However, we also know
that IDEA has been a primary catalyst for the progress we have witnessed.
Because of Federal leadership, the people of the United States better
appreciate the fact that each citizen, including individuals with
disabilities, has a right to participate and contribute meaningfully to
society. With continued Federal-state-local partnerships, the nation will
similarly demonstrate that improving educational results for children with
disabilities and their families is critical to empowering all citizens to
maximize their employment, self-sufficiency, and independence in every state
and locality across the country. Further, our nation’s ability to compete
successfully in the global community depends on the inclusion of all
citizens. We cannot afford to leave anyone out of our efforts.
Reprinted from the U.S. Department of Education.
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“The only pure and consistent advocates for a child are his or her parents
or family members,” explains Betsy Primm, coordinator of Georgia Learning
Resource Services Metro-North branch. “That doesn’t mean that educators
don’t advocate every day for their students, but year in and year out, that
is a parent’s role.” |
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