Inclusive Education Essay

There are a number of landmark court cases of special education in the country that have become the basis of how we currently provide services to students with disabilities. Diana v. California State Board of Education (1970) and Larry P. v. Riles (1984) are two of these landmark court cases that highlight nondiscriminatory assessments. Below is the analysis of the two court cases in four major sections: The Legal Cases, Summary, Future Practice, and Comparison and Contrasts.

It was revised and renamed in the 90’s. It was now named the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA in 1997. This act afforded many more rights and regulations to those with special needs and those that provided these services. While the basic premise of the original act was included, IDEA expanded, improved and outlined more specifically the duties of the service providers. Parents gained many new rights as well. They now were to attend all meetings pertaining to their child’s education and were allowed any and all documentation rather than only the relevant documents (ERIC, 1998). Students were to have measurable goals and participate in standardized testing. Not only are the needs of the student through to the age of twenty one within the educational system considered, but now, there are transition plans required to help students move from school to their adult life or college and beyond. Schools now have a specific plan for each student called the Individual Education Plan or IEP. And IEP often takes the talents of many service providers and thus a team is assembled (ERIC, 1998). Another really amazing part of IDEA is in the area of discipline. Students are not to be denied ongoing services due to behavior (ERIC, 1998). However, if the behavior was not determined to be related to their disability, the school is allowed to discipline the student in the same manner as a student without a disability. IDEA

The first key principle of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is that any student regardless of their disability is entitled to a free and appropriate public education. The term zero reject is commonly used to summarize this principle. An important component of zero reject is for school administrators to understand that the state is responsible for locating, identifying, and providing for students with disabilities from birth through age twenty-one. School officials play an important role in carrying out the state responsibility under the zero reject principle. This principle both implies and specifies the concept that no matter how severe the disability may seem, all children can learn, benefit from, and are entitled to a free and appropriate public education.

In elementary school, my classroom had students with and without disabilities, and we all shared the same space while working towards a common goal, but over time this diverse community diminished. This phenomenon of tracking and hierarchy of opportunity in education that I notice today is also responsible for creating an environment in which secondary special education is often a segregated locale, physically and socially removed from mainstream public schooling. I've witnessed Syracuse University push against this norm and challenge these boundaries time and time again, and I feel that before entering my own my classroom I want to address these issues of homogeneity and continue to build my tool box of inclusionary practices that extend past my current

As a result, there were many Reauthorizations and Amendments to Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. These Amendments would ensure the safety and increase parental participation in the education of children with disabilities. These acts help secure educational programs for those children that demonstrated disruptive behaviors due to their disability. It also provided help to state and local government by relieving them of some of the financial burden associated with educating students with special needs.

There have also been landmark court cases like Brown v Board of Education and Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. Pennsylvania (PARC) which as a result set the wheels in motion for special education reform. The Education for Handicapped Children Act of 1975 was amended and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education ACT (IDEA) in 1990, has had the greatest impact on special education in public schools. When the law was originally passed in 1975 it required all school districts that accepted federal funds to provide disabled students, ages 5-21, equal access to an education in the least restrictive (LRE) setting possible. Schools were to also disperse funds equally among all students and provide free of charge, the necessary

The provision of resources to handicapped children is subject to a wide variety of federal and state laws and statutes. However, due the varied and spectacular range of disabilities and combination of disabilities it is often difficult to easily decide who should receive benefits and who should not. Often debated both within the court system, and without, is the subject of whether the child with a severe disability can actually benefit from the services and resources being allocated to that student. Timothy W. V. Rochester School District addresses just that issue referred to as “Zero Reject.”

The first two laws that dealt with this issue were the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. These laws provided federal funds and established regulations to protect equal access to a free, appropriate public education (FAPE) for students with disabilities. Over time, these laws have been amended and federal financial incentives have been tied to state compliance. Congress and the courts have clarified and reauthorized these laws along with passing additional legislation guaranteeing equal access and opportunities.

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).

In 1991 the Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was replaced by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This law was passed to provide free and appropriate public education to every child with a disability. It requires that each child with a disability “have access to the program best suited to that child’s special needs which is as close as possible to a normal child’s educational program” (Martin, 1978). The Individualized education program (IEP) was developed to help provide a written record of students’ needs and procedures for each child that receives special education services. The IEP will list all the services to be provided, the student's performance level, academic performance, and

The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, (1975), The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, now known as the Individuals with

Inclusion can be defined as the act of being present at regular education classes with the support and services needed to successfully achieve educational goals. Inclusion in the scholastic environment benefits both the disabled student and the non-disabled student in obtaining better life skills. By including all students as much as possible in general or regular education classes all students can learn to work cooperatively, learn to work with different kinds of people, and learn how to help people in tasks. “As Stainback, Stainback, East, and Sapon-Shevin (1994) have noted, ‘...the goal of inclusion in schools is to create a world in which all people are knowledgeable about and supportive of all other

As I learn more about the realities of education, there was one issue that sparked my interest and passion – segregation. Though it is difficult to see first-hand, I can definitely see remnants of segregation through comparison of resources available at schools I’ve worked at. My belief that education serves as an accessible tool for social mobility led me to explore the issue of segregation with the perspective of a future educator. Over 50 years ago in the Brown v. Board of Education case, the Supreme Court deemed that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. With this in mind, I was under the impression that schools were not segregated (at least to a far lesser extent). However, I was shocked to learn that segregation in schools

Within the past decades and a big discussion has occurred regarding the most appropriate setting within which to provide education for students in special education. Although the change in the educational environment is significant for handicapped student the concepts of inclusion also bring up new issues for the regular education classroom teachers.

Special education has faced many changes during the last century. During this time there have been many opinions on the way students with differences should be taught and treated. This paper will discuss the history of special education during the twentieth century. We will also discuss the laws associated with Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Finally we will discuss the current and future challenges that the laws have on special education.