Free Appropriate Public Education Act (EAHCA)

Enacted in 1975, The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) changed this. The EHA established the right to public education for all children regardless of disability. 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. Evelyn Deno’s concept of cascading of services favoring individualized student-centered education became the blueprint for placement options. James Gallagher’s ideas formed the foundation for the IEP and the due process hearing in exceptional

IDEA 2004 defines FAPE as services that are provided at public expense, that the education meet educational standards, is appropriate for the child and conforms with the IEP (Murdick, 2014). In several cases judges have ruled on the bases of free and appropriate public education for all children. In Timothy(v) Rochester N.H. School District (1989) the judged ruled in favor of Timothy, as he stressed IDEA empathized “all handicapped”. In the Hendrick Hudson Central School District (v) Rowley the judged ruled in favor of an appropriate

This case was a very significant ruling for special education evident with numerous studies positing that the ruling of this 1982 case was perhaps the most important special education decision by the Supreme Court and to this day, continues to have a profound effect on the education of students with disabilities. Additionally, this was the first time that the Supreme Court had to interpret portions of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA 1990), which was then the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) as it relates to what constituted a free and appropriate education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE).

There have been several reforms in the past 100 years that have had an influential effect on policy in special education. Some of these changes have left a positive legacy for future education legislators to build from while others have been detrimental to a student’s educational success. All having positive and negative outcomes, some of these changes impacting education include the National Institute of Child and Human Development, Education for All Handicapped Children Act, No Child Left Behind Act, and Individuals with Disabilities Act. The reforms listed above will be discussed

The motivating principle behind IDEA was to ensure an equal opportunity for all children. In order to affect that idea, we have to find a balance between all children’s needs. In 1975, came the passage of the federal Education of All Handicapped Children Act, now revised as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 1990). For handicapped children, the law was long overdue. The designers of IDEA saw themselves as progressive reformers, designing fairer, more responsive schools. The lawmakers were attempting to rectify two historical injustices. First, public schools were not serving many of the country’s eight million handicapped children, with as many as one million children not attending school. Second, a

Since the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was finalized, in October, 2006, there has been a push to transition special education students into general education classes. This places additional pressure on the general education teachers and their school districts, who are expected to prepare them. Before a district can initiate the change there are several issues that need to be addressed. Districts are supposed to provide specialized professional training that prepares a general teacher would need to be funded at the district level, unfortunately, many districts can’t afford it. As noted by Allison Gulamhussein, in many districts,

In a 2014 report from McCann, special education services were federally mandated for the first time in 1965 by the Education of Handicapped Children Act, and a two-year $3.5 million program was created to provide formula grants to states for funding education of special needs students. According to the website, www.understandingspecialeducation.com (2009), in 1975 Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act which guaranteed a “free and appropriate public education” (FAPE). This act was later modified and became the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA. IDEA requires individual states to provide children with special education services as a condition of receiving federal funding for education. The largest portion of IDEA is called IDEA

Under IDEA’s legislation, all states receiving federal funding must provide all students with disabilities between the ages of 3-21 with access to an appropriate free public education; and, identify, locate and evaluate children labeled with disabilities. Furthermore, the federal funding is also to develop an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), passed in the Untied States in 1975, says that “to the maximum extent appropriate, handicapped children, including those children in public and private institutions or other care facilities, are educated with children who are not handicapped, and that special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of handicapped children from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the handicap is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily” (P.L. 94–142, § 1412 [5] [B]) (Villa

Although the legal priority for inclusion can be traced to several moves made by the Supreme Court starting in the 1950’s, it was really the parents of children with disabilities that encouraged legislators to adopt the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) in 1975. This legislation required school districts to include and educate students with special needs and to create specialized academic plans for them. In 1990, EAHCA was renamed The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA (idea). This is the name most people are familiar with. With such honorable beginnings, it makes sense that the individualized education program (IEP), or sometimes called individual education plan, process was intended to be centered on the

Our country’s Legislative system has set many laws in place to protect the educational rights of all students, which allows for students to have a greater opportunity for educational success with funding levels varying between the states. Hooper and Umansky’s book, Young Children with Special Needs, states that the majority of early childhood intervention programs began under the "umbrella of Maternal and Child Health (MCH),” which was put into place in 1935 in accordance with the Social Security Act. The Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) are two programs stemming from this historical piece of legislation. The Americans with Disabilities Act was an anti-discrimination law that allowed for more students to have access to certain facilities and resources giving them a better chance to succeed in their education. IDEA made it mandatory for the state to provide special education service programs for children between the ages of three and five. The parents with children who are included in IDEA typically receive grants to help them fund their child's education. Another piece of legislation that is widely utilized in classrooms today is the Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP). This plan develops a plan of action for the family with children that receive special education services and allows the information to further assist the child beyond school grounds. In use today is the Affordable Care Act (2012) that allowed for programs to be funded that look to prevent and care for children

Advocating in Schools for Children with Disabilities explains how children with disabilities are no longer excluded from public schools (Altshuler & Kopels, 2003). Since the 1999 revisions now children with disabilities get the special education they deserve. Children with disabilities now get the education to help them become independent, help them get the resources they need to become adults. In 1975 it was called the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, children with disabilities now can receive special education. Back then half of the children with disabilities didn’t receive the right education and 1 million was excluded from public school. The law only considered 11 handicapped conditions that qualified children to receive special education. Since 1997 it is called Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and there is 13 federal classification of educational disabilities plus other health impairment and developmental delay. All social workers who work with children and families, despite of what they do, should know of the important educational rights children with disabilities and their families can have. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, one of the most sweeping laws protecting children with disabilities, was substantially amended in 1997, and its regulatory provisions became legally effective in October 1999. This article talks about how the law has changed. The changes talked about in the article are: expansion of categories of children with

The History of Special Education and the Laws Associated with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

The goal of the EHA was to integrate disabled students into the classroom in order to give them an equal opportunity for education, rather than keeping them isolated with no level of proper education. This is significant to the education field in that it ensures equal opportunities for all students despite any disabilities. By encouraging the integration of disabled students within the school system, additional help and services needed are provided, as well as individual evaluations for learning (Moody, 2012). Though life changing, the EHA had many flaws that impacted its overall effectiveness, which ultimately led to its modification to become the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990 (Special Education News, 2017). One of the biggest challenges faced after the implementation of the EHA was funding due to the fact that all public schools needed funding in order to carry out the integration of disabled students in regular classrooms.

One of the laws relating to special education is that all students need to have adequate testing and multiple sources of information in order to be diagnosed and begin receiving services for special education. In 2004, IDEA became the main guideline that LEA’s had to make sure that everyone was following, but before that there was nothing. The article “CCBD'S Position Summary on Federal Policy on Disproportionality in Special Education” by the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders (CCBD) takes a look at the different disproportionality representations that have been found over the years and how the laws have affected them.