Perhaps the largest and most pervasive issue in special education, as well as my own journey in education, is special education's relationship to general education. History has shown that this has never been an easy clear-cut relationship between the two. There has been a lot of giving and taking or maybe I should say pulling and pushing when it comes to educational policy, and the educational practices and services of education and special education by the human educators who deliver those services on both sides of the isle, like me.

1. A Brief History of Special Education
Perhaps the largest and most pervasive issue in special education, as
well as my own journey in education, is special education's
relationship to general education. History has shown that this has
never been an easy clear-cut relationship between the two. There has
been a lot of giving and taking or maybe I should say pulling and
pushing when it comes to educational policy, and the educational
practices and services of education and special education by the
human educators who deliver those services on both sides of the isle,
like me.
Over the last 20+ years, I have been on both sides of education. I
have seen and felt what it was like to be a regular mainstream
educator dealing with special education policy, special education
students, and their specialized teachers. I have also been on the
special education side trying to get regular education teachers to work
more effectively with my special education students through modifying
their instruction and materials and having a little more patience and
empathy.
Furthermore, I have been a mainstream regular education teacher
who taught regular education inclusion classes trying to figure out how
to best work with some new special education teachers in my class
and or her special education students as well. And, in contrast, I have
been a special education inclusion teacher intruding on the territory of
some regular education teachers with my special education students
and the modifications I thought these teachers should implement. I
can tell you first-hand that none of this give and take between special
education and regular education has been easy. Nor do I see this
pushing and pulling becoming easy anytime soon.

2. So, what is special education? And what makes it so special and yet
so complex and controversial sometimes? Well, special education, as
its name suggests, is a specialized branch of education. It claims its
lineage to such people as Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard (1775-1838), the
physician who "tamed" the "wild boy of Aveyron," and Anne Sullivan
Macy (1866-1936), the teacher who "worked miracles" with Helen
Keller.
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3. Special educators teach students who have physical, cognitive,
language, learning, sensory, and/or emotional abilities that deviate
from those of the general population. Special educators provide
instruction specifically tailored to meet individualized needs. These
teachers basically make education more available and accessible to
students who otherwise would have limited access to education due to
whatever disability they are struggling with.
It's not just the teachers though who play a role in the history of
special education in this country. Physicians and clergy, including
Itard- mentioned above, Edouard O. Seguin (1812-1880), Samuel
Gridley Howe (1801-1876), and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet
(1787-1851) wanted to ameliorate the neglectful, often abusive
treatment of individuals with disabilities. Sadly, education in this
country was, more often than not, very neglectful and abusive when
dealing with students that are different somehow.
There is even rich literature in our nation that describes the treatment
provided to individuals with disabilities in the 1800s and early 1900s.
Sadly, in these stories, as well as in the real world, the segment of our
population with disabilities was often confined in jails and almshouses
without decent food, clothing, personal hygiene, and exercise.
For an example of this different treatment in our literature, one needs
to look no further than Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens's A Christmas
Carol (1843). In addition, many times people with disabilities were
often portrayed as villains, such as in the book Captain Hook in J.M.
Barrie's "Peter Pan" in 1911.
The prevailing view of the authors of this time period was that one
should submit to misfortunes, both as a form of obedience to God's
will, and because these seeming misfortunes are ultimately intended

4. for one's own good. Progress for our people with disabilities was hard
to come by at this time with this way of thinking permeating our
society, literature, and thinking.
So, what was society to do about these people of misfortune? Well,
during much of the nineteenth century, and early in the twentieth,
professionals believed individuals with disabilities were best treated in
residential facilities in rural environments. An out of sight out of mind
kind of thing, if you will...
However, by the end of the nineteenth century, the size of these
institutions had increased so dramatically that the goal of rehabilitation
for people with disabilities just wasn't working. Institutions became
instruments for permanent segregation.
I have some experience with these segregation policies of education.
Some of it is good and some of it is not so good. You see, I have been
a self-contained teacher on and off throughout the years in multiple
environments in self-contained classrooms in public high schools,
middle schools, and elementary schools. I have also taught in multiple
special education behavioral self-contained schools that totally
separated these troubled students with disabilities in managing their
behavior from their mainstream peers by putting them in completely
different buildings that were sometimes even in different towns from
their homes, friends, and peers.
Over the years many special education professionals became critics
of these institutions mentioned above that separated and segregated
our children with disabilities from their peers. Irvine Howe was one of
the first to advocate taking our youth out of these huge institutions and
placing our residents into families. Unfortunately, this practice became
a logistical and pragmatic problem and it took a long time before it

5. could become a viable alternative to institutionalization for our
students with disabilities.
Now on the positive side, you might be interested in knowing however
that in 1817 the first special education school in the United States, the
American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and
Dumb (now called the American School for the Deaf), was established
in Hartford, Connecticut, by Gallaudet. That school is still there today
and is one of the top schools in the country for students with auditory
disabilities. A true success story!
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6. However, as you can already imagine, the lasting success of the
American School for the Deaf was the exception and not the rule
during this time period. And add to this, in the late nineteenth century,
social Darwinism replaced environmentalism as the primary causal
explanation for those individuals with disabilities who deviated from
those of the general population.
Sadly, Darwinism opened the door to the eugenics movement of the
early twentieth century. This then led to even further segregation and
even sterilization of individuals with disabilities such as mental
retardation. Sounds like something Hitler was doing in Germany is
also being done right here in our own country, to our own people, by
our own people. Kind of scary and inhumane, wouldn't you agree?
Today, this kind of treatment is obviously unacceptable. And in the
early part of the 20th Century, it was also unacceptable to some
adults, especially the parents of these disabled children. Thus,
concerned and angry parents formed advocacy groups to help bring
the educational needs of children with disabilities into the public eye.
The public had to see firsthand how wrong this eugenics and
sterilization movement was for our students that were different if it was
ever going to be stopped.
Slowly, grassroots organizations made progress that even led to some
states creating laws to protect their citizens with disabilities. For
example, in 1930, in Peoria, Illinois, the first white cane ordinance
gave individuals with blindness the right of way when crossing the
street. This was a start, and other states did eventually follow suit. In
time, this local grassroots movement and states' movement led to
enough pressure on our elected officials for something to be done on
the national level for our people with disabilities.

7. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy created the President's Panel on
Mental Retardation. And in 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which provided funding for
primary education, and is seen by advocacy groups as expanding
access to public education for children with disabilities.
When one thinks about Kennedy's and Johnson's records on civil
rights, then it probably isn't such a surprise to find out that these two
presidents also spearheaded this national movement for our people
with disabilities.
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8. This federal movement led to section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation
Act. This guarantees civil rights for the disabled in the context of
federally funded institutions or any program or activity receiving
Federal financial assistance. All these years later as an educator, I
personally deal with 504 cases every single day.
In 1975 Congress enacted Public Law 94-142, the Education for All
Handicapped Children Act (EHA), which establishes a right to public
education for all children regardless of disability. This was another
good thing because prior to federal legislation, parents had to mostly
educate their children at home or pay for expensive private education.
The movement kept growing. In the 1982 case of the Board of
Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley,
the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the level of services to be afforded to
students with special needs. The Court ruled that special education
services need only provide some "educational benefit" to students.
Public schools were not required to maximize the educational
progress of students with disabilities.
Today, this ruling may not seem like a victory, and as a matter of fact,
this same question is once again circulating through our courts today
in 2017. However, given the time period in, which it was made, it was
a victory because it said special education students could not pass
through our school system without learning anything. They had to
learn something. If one knows and understands how the laws work in
this country, then one knows the laws always progress through tiny
little increments that add up to progress over time. This ruling was a
victory for special education students because it added one more rung
onto the crusade.

9. In the 1980s the Regular Education Initiative (REI) came into being.
This was an attempt to return responsibility for the education of
students with disabilities to neighborhood schools and regular
classroom teachers. I am very familiar with Regular Education
Initiative because I spent four years as an REI teacher in the late
1990s and early 2000s. At this time I was certified as both a special
education teacher and a regular education teacher and was working in
both capacities in a dual role as an REI teacher; because that's what
was required of the position.
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The 1990s saw a big boost for our special education students. 1990
birthed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This
was, and is, the cornerstone of the concept of a free and appropriate

10. public education (FAPE) for all of our students. To ensure FAPE, the
law mandated that each student receiving special education services
must also receive an Individualized Education Program (IEP).
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 reached beyond just the
public schools. And Title 3 of IDEA prohibited disability-based
discrimination in any place of public accommodation. Full and equal
enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, or accommodations in
public places was expected. And of course, public accommodations
also included most places of education.
Also, in the 1990s the full inclusion movement gained a lot of
momentum. This called for educating all students with disabilities in
the regular classroom. I am also very familiar with this aspect of
education as well, as I have also been an inclusion teacher from time
to time over my career as an educator on both sides of the aisle as a
regular education teacher and a special education teacher.
Now on to President Bush and his educational reform with his No
Child Left Behind law that replaced President Johnson's Elementary
and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The NCLB Act of 2001 stated
that special education should continue to focus on producing results
and along with this came a sharp increase in accountability for
educators.
Now, this NCLB Act was good and bad. Of course, we all want to see
results for all of our students, and it's just common sense that
accountability helps this sort of thing happen. Where this kind of went
crazy was that the NCLB demanded a host of new things, but did not
provide the funds or support to achieve these new objectives.

11. Furthermore, teachers began feeling squeezed and threatened more
and more by the new movement of big business and corporate
education moving in and taking over education. People with no
educational background now found themselves influencing education
policy and gaining access to a lot of the educational funds.
This accountability craze stemmed from excessive standardized
testing ran rapid and of course ran downstream from a host of
well-connected elite Trump-like figures saying to their lower echelon
educational counterparts, "You're fired!" This environment of trying to
stay off of the radar in order to keep one's job, and beating our kids
over the head with testing strategies, wasn't good for our educators. It
wasn't good for our students. And it certainly wasn't good for our more
vulnerable special education students.
Some good did come from this era though. For example, the updated
Individuals with Disabilities with Education Act of 2004 (IDEA)
happened. This further required schools to provide individualized or
special education for children with qualifying disabilities. Under the
IDEA, states who accept public funds for education must provide
special education to qualifying children with disabilities. Like I said
earlier, the law is a long slow process of tiny little steps adding up to
progress made over time.
Finally, in 2015 President Obama's Every Student Succeeds Act
(ESSA) replaced President Bush's NCLB, which had replaced
President Johnson's ESEA. Under Obama's new ESSA schools were
now allowed to back off on some of the tests. Hopefully, the
standardized testing craze has been put in check. However, only time
will tell. ESSA also returned to more local control. You know, the kind
of control our forefathers intended.

12. You see the U.S. Constitution grants no authority over education to
the federal government. Education is not mentioned in the Constitution
of the United States, and for good reason. The Founders wanted most
aspects of life managed by those who were closest to them, either by
state or local government or by families, businesses, and other
elements of civil society. Basically, they saw no role for the federal
government in education.
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13. You see, the Founders feared the concentration of power. They
believed that the best way to protect individual freedom and civil
society was to limit and divide power. However, this works both ways,
because the states often find themselves asking the feds for more
educational money. And the feds will only give the states additional
money if the states do what the feds want... Hmm... Checks and
balances, as well as compromise, can be a really tricky thing, huh?
So on goes the battle in education and all the back and forth pushing
and pulling between the federal government and the states and local
government, as well as special education and regular education. And
to add to this struggle, recently Judge Moukawsher, a state judge from
Connecticut, in a lawsuit filed against the state by the Connecticut
Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, rocked the educational
boat some more when in his ruling he included a message to
lawmakers to reassess what level of services students with significant
disabilities are entitled to.
His ruling and statements appear to say that he thinks we're spending
too much money on our special education students. And that for some
of them, it just isn't worth it because their disabilities are too severe.
You can imagine how controversial this was and how much it angered
some people.
The 2016 United States Presidential election resulted in something
that few people saw coming. Real Estate mogul and reality star
Donald Trump won the presidency and then appointed anti-public
educator Betsy Devos to head up this country's Department of
Education. Her charge, given to her by Trump, is to drastically slash
the Department of Education and to push forward private charter
schools over what they call a failing public educational system.

14. How this is going to affect our students, and especially our more
vulnerable special education students, nobody knows for sure at this
time. But, I can also tell you that there aren't many people out there
that feel comfortable with it right now. Only time will tell where this is
all going to go and how it will affect our special education students...
So, as I said earlier, perhaps the largest, most pervasive issue in
special education is its relationship to general education. Both my own
travels and our nation's journey through the vast realm of education
over all of these years has been interesting and tricky one plagued
with controversy, to say the least.
I can still remember when I first became a special education teacher
back in the mid-1990s. A friend's father, who was a school principal at
the time, told me to get out of special education because it wasn't
going to last. Well, I've been in and out of special education for more
than two decades now, and sometimes I don't know if I'm a regular
education teacher or a special education teacher, or both. And
sometimes I think our country's educational system might be feeling
the same internal struggle that I am. But, regardless, all these years
later, special education is still here.
In closing, although Itard failed to normalize Victor, the wild boy of
Avery, he did produce dramatic changes in Victor's behavior through
education. Today, modern special education practices can be traced to
Itard. His work marks the beginning of widespread attempts to instruct
students with disabilities. Fast forwarding to 2017, what happens next
in the future of education and special education in our country... Well, I
guess that depends on all of us…
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