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Brown vs. The Board of Education
The supreme court ruled that the segregation of students in a public school based on race was unconstitutional. This impacted Special Education because this ruling caused parents of children with disabilities to begin bringing forward their own lawsuits for segregation of students in a public school based on their disability -
Elementary and Secondary Education Act
This addressed the inequality of educational opportunities for underprivileged children. This directly impacted Special Education because in 1966 congress eventually amended the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to establish a grant program for improvements of public school programs and projects including the education of handicapped children. -
Education of the Handicapped Act
Encouraged states to develop educational programs for individuals with disabilities. This event was significant because unlike the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and it's amendments, it provided specific mandates on school finances and it's distribution to students with disabilities.
This was the first law that directly addressed students with disabiilties. -
P.A.R.C. vs. Pennsylvania
The Pennsylvania Association of Retarded Citizens sued the state on Pennsylvania over a law with statutes that excluded children with disabilities in the education setting. This ruling enforced that the state could not deny any individual the right to equal access to education based on an intellectual or developmental disability. This ruling laid the groundwork for FAPE and IDEA. -
Mills vs. The Board of Education of District Columbia
This case was very similar to P.A.R.C. but expanded the ruling to students with disabilities including behavioral, mental, hyperactive and emotional disabilities from being denied placement in public education. It argued the lack of financial resources/ruled that if sufficient funds are not available then all available funds must be expanded equably so that no students are excluded. Following PARC and Mills, 27 other federal courts followed these decisions. One to emerge was the EHCA in 1975. -
Vocational Rehabilitation Act
This act is where the term "504" came from. Section 504 protects the individuals with disabilities right to equal opportunities to receive program benefits and services as well as protecting these individuals from and acts of discrimination towards them. i -
Education for All Handicapped Children Act
The original "IDEA". Congress ruled that all children with disabilities would have a right to education as well as establish procedural safeguards to hold schools accountable for providing educational services for all handicapped children. This original act would eventually be amended to continue to protect the educational rights of individuals with disabilities. -
Board of Education vs. Rowley
The Supreme court defined "free appropriate public education" or FAPE. It also defined Educational benefit as "Merely More Than De Minimis" meaning that schools are required to provide more than just the bare minimum of resources to students with disabilities in order to be successful. This ruling mandated that not all students with disabilities necessarily get the exact same resources, but that each student gets the resources they need. -
IDEA Law
In 1990 the EAHCA was renamed to IDEA. In addition to changing the name, the new law added transition services for students with disabilities as they transition out of high school. -
No Child Left Behind
Reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and ensured that all students meet state standards. This put a large focus on standardized testing in schools and caused a bit of a strain on students with disabilities who could not meet these standards. -
IDEA 2004
The reauthorization of the 1990 IDEA law. It helped align IDEA with No child left behind as well as provided more accountability for the schools, more focus on data and results from evaluation and intervention and more intervention to keep students out of the special education setting and into the general education setting.