This document provides a summary of 8 major events in the history of special education in the United States: 1) Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 ruled that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. 2) Mills v. Board of Education and Pennsylvania Assoc. for Retarded Children established that all children have a right to public education. 3) The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibited disability discrimination in federal programs and employment. 4) Public Law 94-142, passed in 1975, guaranteed free appropriate public education to all children with disabilities. 5) The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibited discrimination against people with disabilities. 6) Final federal regulations were issued governing special education.

1. The History of Special Education

2. Terminology
"Intellectual disability" means the definition formerly known as "mental
retardation" and means significantly sub average general intellectual
functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and
manifested during the developmental period that adversely affects a child's
educational performance.
The transition in terminology is used by organizations such as the American
Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, the International
Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disabilities, and the
President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.

3. Terminology
The term intellectual disability covers the same
population of students who were identified
previously with mental retardation. This new
change in terminology does not affect the
continued need for individualized supports and
services.

4. LEAST RESTRICTIVE ENVIRONMENT
(LRE) that is appropriate for them. The spirit of
this requirement is to ensure that children are
not unnecessarily removed from the regular
classroom or isolated from other non-disabled
children of their age. LRE decisions are made
based on children's learning needs and vary
from child to child.

5. LRE
Choosing the appropriate LRE is important to
ensure that your child receives the instruction
she needs, and Federal Special Education
regulations require that students with learning
disabilities must be educated in the LRE. The LRE
is not any specific placement. Rather, it is the
most appropriate placement for a child that is
chosen from a range of options.

6. 1954 1st Major Event
On May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in
the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas. State-sanctioned
segregation of public schools was a violation of
the 14th amendment and was therefore
unconstitutional.

7. 1972 2nd Major Event
• Mills v. Board of Education of District of Columbia (1972)
was one of two important federal trial court rulings that
helped to lay the foundation that eventually led to the
passage of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act
(EAHCA), now the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act (IDEA), laws that changed the face of American
education. Prior to 1975 and the enactment of these laws,
many schools did not offer special education for students
with disabilities. As such, millions of students were denied
appropriate services or excluded from public education
entirely. The other case was Pennsylvania Association of
Retarded Children v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1971,
1972).

8. 1972 3rd Major Event
In 1971, the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded
Children (PARC) sued the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania for a state law that allowed public
schools to deny education to certain children,
namely those who had not “attained a mental age
of 5 years”. This law had been consistently used by
the state to deny education to students considered
too burdensome to integrate into school and
classroom environments. The case was brought and
settled before the District Court of the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania.

9. Continue 3rd Major Event
• PARC was the first significant challenge to laws
around the country prohibiting or excluding
students with mental disabilities from
attending school alongside other children or
even in special programs tailored to their
needs. Before this case, many states had
similar forms of legislation in place to prevent
children with mental disabilities from
receiving a free public education.

10. U.S District Judge Masterson Decree
Based on the strength of evidence, the sides came to a
settlement in early 1972, and U.S. District Court Judge
Masterson gave a consent decree deeming the former
laws unconstitutional and tasking the State with providing
a free public education to all children between the ages
of six and twenty-one years. Additionally, the State was
asked to provide sufficient education and training for all
“exceptional” children, to the level of those given to their
peers. In line with these new requirements, the
Commonwealth could no longer deny any child with
disabilities access to any free public program of education
and training.

11. Rehabilitation Act of 1973 4TH Major Event
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (often just called
the “Rehab Act”) prohibits discrimination on the
basis of disability in programs run by federal
agencies; programs that receive federal financial
assistance; in federal employment; and in the
employment practices of federal contractors.

12. Section 501, 503
• prohibits federal employers from
discriminating against qualified individuals
with disabilities.
• prohibits employment discrimination based
on disability and requires affirmative action in
the hiring, placement and advancement of
people with disabilities.

13. Section 504, 508
• of the Rehab Act makes it illegal for federal
agencies, or programs or activities that receive
federal financial assistance or are conducted
by a federal agency, to discriminate against
qualified individuals with disabilities.
• requires federal electronic and information
technology to be accessible to people with
disabilities, including employees and members
of the public.

14. Public Law, 94-142, 1975, 5th Major Event
• Public Law 94-142
When it was passed in 1975, P.L. 94-142
guaranteed a free appropriate public
education to each child with a disability. This
law had a dramatic, positive impact on
millions of children with disabilities in every
state and each local community across the
country.

15. FAPE
• Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) is an
educational right of children with disabilities
in the United States that is guaranteed by the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

16. 1990,The American with Disabilities, 6th Major Event
• The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was
signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President
George H.W. Bush. The ADA is one of America's
most comprehensive pieces of civil rights
legislation that prohibits discrimination and
guarantees that people with disabilities have the
same opportunities as everyone else to
participate in the mainstream of American life --
to enjoy employment opportunities, to purchase
goods and services, and to participate in State
and local government programs and services

17. The final Federal Regulation, 7TH Major Event
The Secretary issues final
regulations governing the Assistance to
States for Education of Children with
Disabilities Program and the Preschool
Grants for Children with Disabilities
Program. These regulations are needed
to implement changes made to the
Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act, as amended by the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Improvement Act
of 2004 (Act or IDEA).

18. 7TH Major Event continue
• Department of
Education
34 CFR Parts 300 and 301
Assistance to States for the Education of
Children With Disabilities and Preschool
Grants for Children With Disabilities;
Final Rule

19. 2001, No Child Left Behind, 8th Major Event
• The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support in
2001 and was signed into law by President George W. Bush on Jan. 8, 2002, is the name for the most
recent update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
• Under the NCLB law, states must test students in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once in high
school. And they must report the results, for both the student population as a whole and for particular
“subgroups” of students, including English-learners and students in special education, racial minorities,
and children from low-income families.
• Under the law, schools are kept on track toward their goals through a mechanism known as “adequate
yearly progress” or AYP. If a school misses its state’s annual achievement targets for two years or more,
either for all students or for a particular subgroup, it is identified as not “making AYP” and is subject to a
cascade of increasingly serious sanctions:

20. References
No Child Left Behind: An Overview, Klein, Alyson. Retrieved from
http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/no-child-left-behind-overview-definition-
summary.html
Department of Education, Vol.71, No. 156. August 14, 2006. Retrieved from
idea.ed.gov/download/finalregulations.pdf
Information and Technical Assistance on the American with Disabilities Act, Retrieved from
http://www.ada.gov/ada_intro.htm
Thirty-Five Years of Progress in Education Children with Disabilities through IDEA, November,
22, 2010. Retrieved from
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/idea35/history/index_pg10.html
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Retrieved from www.disability.gov/rehabilitation-act-1973/
Rooted in Rights, Li, Louise. December 11, 2013. Retrieved from
http://www.rootedinrights.org/15321-revision-v1/
The Education Law: Mills v. Board of Education of the District of Columbia, Retrieved from
http://usedulaw.com/438-mills-v-board-of-education-of-the-district-of-columbia.html
Brown v Board of Education (1954), Retrieved from
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=87