History of special education

Running head: HISTORY OF SPECIAL EDUCATION

Fifty years of Special Education Laws
Alejandra Ochoa Pérez
Texas A&M International University
October 27, 2008
Abstract

Special Education has a lot of changes since 1950, laws were enacted to provide support for the individual with disabilities and that laws were changing trough the years to provide better services to those individuals. Theactual programs that provide the best services to those individuals are IDEA, Section 504 and ADA. These acts were improving and adding new services and opportunities to students with disabilities. For most of these acts, Special Education comes out from darkness to provide education to all the people with any disability.
Fifty years of Special Education Laws
Early years of SpecialEducation
Few federal laws started to authorize direct education benefits to individuals with disabilities prior to the 1950’s. During the first years of the 1800’s some acts made grants to the states for institutions to educate people with disabilities; deaf and blind people. No matter all the efforts that were made during the 1800’s, the federal government limited most of theinvolvement for those individuals in the public schools. NDEA and ESEA were the first grants that improved public elementary and secondary education but it did not include individuals with disabilities. (Martin, 2006)
In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas case made the US Supreme to stop segregation in schools. It was the beginning for the future rulings were the individuals withdisabilities cannot be excluded from the public schools (Pardini, 2002)
The National Defense Education Act of 1958 (NDEA) was the provider of grants that helped to improve science and math teaching for the first grades levels; it promoted federal involvement in elementary and secondary education. The President Eisenhower signed the Public Law 85-926 act, four days after NDEA, wherecolleges and universities were provided by financial support for training persons to teach children with mental retardation and, five years later, grants for teachers and researchers in a broader array of disabilities were included too (Martin, 2006).
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 subsidized direct services to a selected group of individuals in public elementaryand secondary schools. This act authorized an important budget for programs that serve “to assist disadvantaged children, instructional materials, centers for educational innovation and research, and state educational agencies” (p.23). Public Law 89-313 and Public Law 89-750 were included to ESEA. Both amendments were written to increase the funding programs and to establish a program thatprovides federal grants for the education of individuals with disabilities. (Murdick, 'et al., 2007)
Special Education in 1970’s
This decade was very important for the history of Special Education. Laws changed and new laws were stated. In 1970, the ESEA amendments that were unified the grant program related to individuals with special needs was renamed the EHA of 1970. Two litigationcases determined the constitutional rights of education: Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1971), and Mills v. Board of Education of the District of Columbia (1972).
PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania case resulted in a consent decree that prohibited the State of Pennsylvania to refuse education opportunities to individuals with acognitive disability who live in the state. After this case, the state agreed to give total access to FAPE to children with a cognitive disability until they turn to age 21. With Mills v. Board of Education of the District of Columbia case school district cannot decide if they have resource or not to serve individuals with disabilities. (Murdick, 'et al., 2007)
In 1973, the Vocational...