History of Special Education

The Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed in 1975. It is also known as the Public Law 94-142. Even though there have been education laws in effect since 1918, many children with disabilities were banned from public schools. The children were either institutionalized or stayed at home. If children with mild or moderate disabilities did go to school it was very rare that they would graduate.
The Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and the Civil Rights Movement extended equal protection under the law for minorities and paved the way for people with disabilities to receive the same treatment. In 1933 parents started forming special education advocacy groups and ultimately were the main people in improving education opportunities for their children.
The Public Law 94-142 required schools to provide students with a any range of disability with a “free appropriate public education.” It also requires school districts to offer education in the “least restrictive environment” possible.
In 1990 and 1997 the law was renamed as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This law provided students with access to education and services that they were previously denied. Some of the services were smaller classes, interpreters for the deaf and computer- assisted technology. Students with disabilities started spending time in a regular classroom setting.
Approximately 6 million children receive special education services. To educate children with disabilities was expected to cost around $51 billion. In 1975 The federal government promised to cover 40 percent of the additional costs incurred by students with disabilities. Even though the federal government spends more on special education every year they have never paid more than 15 percent of the total cost.

Special Reasons For picking my major

I am going to write my research paper on special education because that is my major and it interests me. I decided I wanted to become a special education teacher when I was in sixth grade for two reasons: my mom is a special education teacher and I have seizures so I can in a way relate to people with special needs. I knew since I was a little girl that I wanted to be a teacher because I like to teach people new things, I just never knew what type of teacher I wanted to be. I didn’t actually decide that I wanted to teach children with special needs until I started having seizures in the sixth grade. I decided that I would teach special education when I realized that children with special needs were treated differently by teachers and students and that they also needed someone that would be a good advocate for them. To teach students with special education takes a lot of work because you need to be caring, understanding, tough, and helpful. When you help a special needs student you can tell when you have made an impact on there lives because there faces light up. I think students with special needs appreciate things more than people without a disability but yet they get a worse education because they need more equipment and need to be taught slower in order to understand things. This is why I have chosen to teach special education and write a research paper on this topic as well.