Activity
josely27
DisabilityinK-12.pptxDisability in K-12
Overview Disability in K-12
Key topics include:
Education disparities
Rates of disability
Barriers & supports
Rates of Disability in K-12
Students with disabilities made up about 14% of the total public school enrollment during the 2018-19 academic year
Learning disabilities are the most common disability served under IDEA
Rates of Disability in K-12 by Race and Ethnicity
Native youth report the highest rate of having or being labeled as having a disability
Asian youth report the lowest rate of having or being labeled as having a disability
Rates in Disability
Increase in the percentage of total public school enrollment for children with disabilities served under IDEA has increased from 8.3% to 13.8% from 1967-77 and 2004-05 school years
IDEA was enacted in 1975
Increase is largely due to an increase in the number of students identified as having a disability since the enactment of IDEA
View the U.S. Department of Education’s table that shows the percentages of children served under IDEA by type of disability from 1976 to 2018
Video: Judith Heumann’s Ted Talk
Explore the Data: Seclusion
Read The Quiet Rooms
Explore the data on seclusions
Map and search bar for district name are provided under the section “seclusion at school: Look up Illinois districts”
Legislative & Litigation History of Special Education
Key topics include:
Evolving state & federal roles
Litigation from 1971-1973
Litigation from 1975 to present
Critical elements of the IDEA
Video: Special Education Law
Evolving Federal & State Roles
Laws in most states allowed schools to refuse to enroll any student they considered “uneducable” until the mid-1970’s
Federal laws to promote education
Largely excluded children with disabilities
Federal efforts to improve education largely began in 1958 and 1965
National Defense Education Act (NDEA)
Passed in 1958 to provide grants to improve science and math
Evolving Federal & State Roles
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)
Passed in 1965
Effort to subsidize direct services to select populations in public elementary and secondary schools
Consolidation of leadership and funding
Bureau for the Education of the Handicapped (BEH) was created in 1966
Increased federal funding and directing support to specific programs
Creation of the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA) passed in 1970
Evolving Federal & State Roles
State Laws
“Mandatory” laws: created to provide partial funding and required school districts to offer special education to children with disabilities
45 states passed legislation for educating disabled children
Many state laws had loopholes or were not enforced
Litigation from 1971-1973
Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) v Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Full access to a free public education
Up to age 21
Preference for the least restrictive placement
Mills v. Board of Education
Ruling decided schools were prohibited from deciding they had inadequate resources to service disabled children
Equal right to a public education
Children were entitled to full protections
Litigation from 1975 to Present
Federal Statues
The Rehabilitation Act, Section 504 passed in 1973
Organizations that receive federal funding must end discrimination in the offering of services to people with disabilities
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Expanded the rights of people with disabilities
Anti-discriminatory law for employment, public accommodations, transportation, and telecommunication
Litigation from 1975 to Present
Educational Grant program
Originally called the Education for All Handicapped Children Act and signed into law in 1977
Renamed to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990
States are not required to participate in IDEA
Critical Elements of the IDEA
“Child find” and funding based on child count
Encouraged districts to identify students with disabilities and provide them with special services
Evaluation and eligibility
Child must be evaluated and parents are involved in the process
Child is entitled to services once determined disabled
Parental input and due process
Protections for parents of children with disabilities
Critical Elements of the IDEA
Appropriate education and IEP
Challenges to interpreting this standard
No one definition of “appropriate education”
Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)
Whenever appropriate, children must be educated in a mainstream classroom
No one definition of “whenever appropriate”
Services to infants, toddlers, and preschoolers
IDEA provides services to children with disabilities between ages 3 and 21
Video: The Special Education Process
Tools of Exclusion
Race, Disability, & (Re)Segregated Education
Key topics include:
Histories of desegregation & special education
Defining disability in ways that undermine desegregation
Inclusion movement
Discourses of exclusion in the popular press
Video: Segregating Kids with Disabilities
Content warning: suicide, ableism, segregation
Intertwined Histories of School Desegregation & Special Education
Arguments against segregated education by race and disability
References to Brown v. Board of Education
Argument that segregation will imprint on the hearts and minds of students
Both policies strive to overcome prior policies and practices of exclusion
Brown’s strategy provided legal precedence and thought process that later benefited special education legislation
Both policies have been criticized for vague terminology
Defining Disability in Ways that Undermine Desegregation
Evolution of creating new categories of disability
Rationalized the practice of removing certain students (non-white, immigrant, and poor students) from general education
Increase use of the terms learning disability (LD) and emotional disturbance (ED) during the 1960’s
Evolution of 2 systems of education echoed the inequalities with racially segregated schools
Sorting students along racial lines due to the overrepresentation of Black and Latino students labeled as having a disability
Desegregation history showed that definitions of “ability” were used to undermine integration efforts
Use of standardized testing
Defining Disability in Ways that Undermine Desegregation
Different outcomes for white students and students of color
Extra support services, maintenance in general education classrooms, and accommodations are more common for white students
Can result in decreased access to general education and poorer transition outcomes for students of color
Increased isolation for students of color
Labeling exceptional ability or “giftedness” works to protectively segregate certain White students
This helps resegregate classrooms along race and class lines
Inclusion Movement within Special Education
Advocates in the late 1980s and early 1990s pushed for more inclusive placements
Used Brown v Board of Education to help explain their resistance to segregated placements
Reauthorization of IDEA in 1997
Used to determine problems of overrepresentation and underrepresentation
Needed to develop measures to address them
Inclusion movement had strong opposition in the press
Ferri & Connor argue that lack of inclusion is related to the lack of desegregation in schools
Resistance to both policies
Examining Discourses of Exclusion in the Popular Press
Ferri & Connor examined newspapers
Newspapers from the time of the Brown decisions (195—1956)
Newspapers from the peak years of the debate of inclusion of special education students (1987-2002)
The case of desegregation:
Gradual change results in backlash and resegregation, along with the opportunity to delay
Use of “legal” means to circumvent court desegregation orders
Examining Discourses of Exclusion in the Popular Press
The case of inclusion:
Language of “least restrictive environment” had a range of interpretations
Some argued for a more gradual approach to implementing inclusion
In the 1990s the debate shifted to advocating gradualism and “proceed with caution”
Equal Education: Are we still segregated in schools?
Racism and Segregation in Schools
ProPublica: Racial Inequality in Your School
https://projects.propublica.org/miseducation/
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