The document summarizes the history of special education law and policy in the United States over the past 50 years. It describes key court cases and legislation that established and expanded the rights of students with disabilities to receive a free and appropriate public education, including the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, which required schools to educate students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment possible. It also discusses ongoing issues like disproportionate representation of minority students in special education and cultural bias in assessment methods.

1. Lisa Israel
Foundations of Special Education
September 15, 2013
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Separate Is Not Equal: Fifty Years of Progress in Special Education
By Lisa Israel
Until the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education
(1954), it was legal to segregate students by color as long as the education they received was
equal. Regardless of whether white or Black schools received the same funding, had access to
the same textbooks, had similarly qualified teachers, or had similar class sizes, the Supreme
court held that refusing to allow students of color to attend White schools conveyed to the
students that they were not equal.
Students with disabilities were institutionalized and excluded from schools until 1966,
when Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was passed. It had
previously been assumed that these students were unable to learn as a result of their disabilities.
In those cases where students with disabilities were provided with educational opportunities,
often times they were kept separate from other students. Because they had been denied an
education, they often lacked the ability to carve out careers and lives for themselves. Under Title
III, states were given federal grants to provide an education to students with disabilities.
The courts asserted in Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) v.
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1972) and in Mills v. Board of Education of District of
Columbia (1972) that a student with disabilities should receive an individually designed
education that conveys some benefit. In 1973, thanks to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act,
students with disabilities were entitled to receive “reasonable accommodations” if they attended

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Foundations of Special Education
September 15, 2013
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public schools that received federal funds. In the following year, Title VI of ESEA set the goal
that all children with disabilities would receive “full” educational opportunities.
The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (since renamed “IDEA”)
asserted that past discrimination against students with disabilities had occurred when students
had been excluded from schools, either completely, or to an extent that deprived them of
educational benefits. It also found that students were denied educational benefits when they
were wrongly classified as having a disability, or when their needs differed because of incorrect
classification. According to the U.S. Department of Education in A 25 Year History of the
IDEA (http://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/leg/idea/history.html) “more than 1 million children
with disabilities… were excluded entirely from the education system.” Furthermore, as the U.S.
Department of Education asserts, over half of all American children with disabilities at that time”
received only limited access to the education system and were therefore denied an appropriate
education” (U.S. Department of Education). Under the Education for All Handicapped Children
Act of 1975, schools were required to educate students in the least restrictive environment (LRE)
possible.
The purpose of the Education of All Handicapped Children Act was four-fold:
 To convey the right that students with disabilities have to a free, appropriate
public education (“FAPE”)
 To give students and parents due process, a procedure by which they can seek
remedy when they feel the student is not receiving a free and appropriate
public education
 To provide federal assistance to SEAs and LEAs, and

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Foundations of Special Education
September 15, 2013
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 To assess whether the educational benefits provided to students with
disabilities are effective.
Under the Education of All Handicapped Children Act, SEAs and LEAs must accept
everyone with disabilities (or the principle of “zero reject.”) Students also must receive a
nondiscriminatory evaluation that accurately and fairly assesses their abilities and needs so that
they can receive a fair and appropriate public education. Special Education teachers, other
professionals, and the student’s family jointly design an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for each
student, which is reviewed annually to ensure that the student’s needs are being met and that an
educational benefit is being conveyed.
The assessment methods used, including the IQ test, were questioned on the basis of
cultural bias in a class action suit, Larry P. v. Riles (1979). At that time, students with learning
disabilities were routinely misclassified as having “educable mental retardation” (EMR) and
were placed in special education classrooms on the basis of their IQ scores alone. In 1968-1969,
students of African-American descent (who comprised 9% of the student population in
California) were disproportionately classified as having “EMR,” and were placed in special
education classrooms in which they comprised 27% of the population. (Reference.com, 2013,
http://www.reference.com/motif/history/larry-p-v-riles). Upon review, the court determined that
the IQ tests given to students were designed and tested only on White students. As a result,
multiple methods of evaluation were mandated by the courts. Schools were also required to
make a census of EMR classrooms, and to justify the presence of the Black students who did
attend.

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Foundations of Special Education
September 15, 2013
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Students’ rights to receive educational benefits despite the challenges that their
disabilities might impose was affirmed in the 1988 case, Honig v. Doe. Two students who had
been classified as having EBD engaged in acts that put other students at risk. The LEA expelled
the students indefinitely. The students challenged under the 1975 Education for All
Handicapped Children Act (now IDEA). The court held that if the conduct of students receiving
services is “dangerous or disruptive,” the LEA is allowed to 1) suspend students for up to 10
days a school year 2) use disciplinary procedures that do not affect the student’s placement and
3) continue to provide services in place until the LEA obtains guardian consent or a court order
to revise the student’s placement.
The Education for All Handicapped Children Act was renamed IDEA (the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act) in 1990, and specified autism and traumatic brain injury as
separate from Emotional and Behavioral Disorders.
The concept of “disability” was examined in IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).
Under IDEA, as restated by Turnbull in Free Appropriate Public Education (2007), disability is
seen as “a natural part of the human experience and in no way diminishes the right of individuals
to participate in or contribute to society” (p. 11). Furthermore, IDEA (again according to
Turnbull) is aimed at “improving educational results for children with disabilities” to ensure
“equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency”
(2007, p. 11).
Thus, students with disabilities are equally entitled to an education, and as was
established in Brown in 1954, their education cannot be separate from their non-disabled peers
because “separate is inherently unequal.”

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Foundations of Special Education
September 15, 2013
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Also in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, giving legal protection
from discrimination to individuals with disabilities. IDEA was reauthorized in 1997.
To assure that students with disabilities are receiving the same quality of education as their non-
disabled peers, No Child Left Behind (2001) mandates that unless a documented need for
alternative assessment exists, all students must take the same state tests to assess their progress in
meeting standards.
IDEA was reauthorized last in 2004. Among the changes is that schools now use
Response to Intervention (or RTI), a scientific, research-based intervention, to see if outcomes
are improved in place of IQ testing. It also extended services to private schools. The 2004
revision added to the categories of learning needs; they now include Specific Learning
Disabilities, Speech or Language Impairments, Mental Retardation, Emotional Disturbance,
Multiple Disabilities, Hearing Loss, Orthopedic Impairments, Other Health Impairments, Visual
Impairments, Autism, Deaf-Blindness, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Developmental Delay (for
students aged 3 – 9). IDEA also recognizes that minorities are disproportionally represented in
Special Education. To achieve a racial balance in Special Education that is roughly equivalent to
that seen in the general school population, IDEA sought to address problems associated with the
mislabeling of students and the dropout rate of students of color who have been classified as
having disabilities.
Court rulings will continue to test the boundaries of the educational obligations that states
and local education agencies have, and Special Education law continues to change.
Disproportionate representation of Black students in Special Education continues to be an issue,
especially in the categories of learning disabilities, mild mental retardation, and emotional/

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behavioral disorders (Trent, 2010). Black students tend also to be placed in more restrictive
settings than their White peers (Trent, 2010). Disturbingly, there is a correlation between poor
school performance, disabilities, and incarceration in the juvenile justice system (Trent, 2010).
This overrepresentation may be due to deficit thinking on the part of teachers and other school
professionals. In deficit thinking, the person in power attributes the blame of failure on the
student, rationalizing that the student must lack motivation, have limited abilities, and lack the
ability to control his or her own behavior.
IDEA, NCLB, and other reforms over the past 50 years have attempted to put the impetus
back on the educators to teach in a way that students can learn.
Sources
Trent, S.C. (2010). Overrepresentation of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students in
Special Education. International Encyclopedia of Education, 2, 774-779.
Turnbull, H.R. (2007). Free Appropriate Public Education: The Law and Children With
Disabilities (7th
ed). Denver, CO: Love Publishing Company.
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Foundations of Special Education
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