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American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb
In the United States, the first special education school was the school now called the American School for the Deaf, then the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, in Hartford, Connecticut in 1817. -
Massachusetts School Attendance Act
In 1852, Massachusetts became the first jurisdiction in the United States to adopt a compulsory attendance law. The act specified that children between the ages of 8 and 14 were required to attend school for a minimum of 12 weeks per year; 6 weeks of a student’s attendance was required to be consecutive if the school was open for that period of time. By 1918, all states had formally adopted compulsory attendance laws requiring school-aged children to attend school -
Brown v. Board of Education
The Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal schools were not equal and students should be educated together regardless of race. After the decision in Brown, parents of children with disabilities began to bring lawsuits against their school districts for excluding and segregating children with disabilities. The parents argued that, by excluding these children, schools were discriminating against the children because of their disabilities. -
President's Panel on Mental Retardation
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy created the President’s Panel on Mental Retardation. The panel was mandated to prepare a "National Plan to Combat Mental Retardation." The panel’s recommendations included federal aid to states which was significant in the movement from institutionalization to community integration in the US and throughout the world, a major public policy challenge. -
Elementary and Secondary Education Act
In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which provided funding for primary and secondary education. It addresses the inequality of educational opportunity for underprivileged children. This legislation provided resources to help ensure that disadvantaged students had access to quality education and is seen by advocacy groups as expanding access to public education for children with disabilities. -
Special Olympics
http://specialolympics.org/
In 1962 Eunice Kennedy Shriver founded Camp Shriver, which started on her Maryland farm known as Timberlawn, and evolved into the Special Olympics in 1968. Not only did the games provided activity for people with special needs, but the games provided public awareness of this population and their needs. -
Mills vs.Board of Education of District of Columbia
A civil action brought on behalf of seven special-needs school-age children who sought their right to a free public education. The school district’s primary defense in Mills was the high cost of educating children with disabilities. The court determined the school board had to do its best to apportion the monies in such a way as to ensure that no child was denied the opportunity to benefit from a public school educations. -
PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
PARC dealt with the exclusion of children with mental retardation from public schools. In the settlement the State was tasked with providing a free public education to all children between the ages of six and twenty-one years. -
Rehabilitation Act of 1973
http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/section-504-2/
This act made it illegal for any federal agency, public university, defense or other federal contractor, or any other institution that received federal funding to discriminate against anyone solely on the basis of disability. -
Education for all Handicapped Children Act of 1975
The EHA establishes a right to public education for all children regardless of disability, -
Americans with Disabilities Act
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns7UY8HdPr8
ADA was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush.
This act was intended to make it illegal to keep disabled individuals from having reasonable access to recreation, employment, education, and any other of the usual activities most Americans take for granted. -
No Child Left Behind Act
Goal was to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments - No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002. -
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66g6TbJbs2g
The IDEA requires schools 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.
