Caroline's Paper

Caroline Cunningham
Ken Hockensmith
AP Government
2 June 2014

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 

Introduction 

            One of the great benefits of being an American citizen is the right to a free public education. Before the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975 disabled children were given inferior education to that of average students.  While I think that the passage of this law has made our education system in America take leaps and bounds in the positive direction, I still think that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act still has its flaws.

History/Enactment

  The Civil Rights movement is where it all began, it was the starting grounds for prodigious movements in education.  The case that brought about the education evolutions was Brown v. Board of Education which ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional.
            Many presidents before the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act wanted to show awareness towards mental retardation. Those presidents included John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
  The first piece of special education legislation arrived in 1971 called the Education for All Act which provided equal access to public education for disabled students.  In 1972 the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) sued Pennsylvania for not providing equal access to education for students with disabilities. After that, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 initiated that federal programs could not discriminate on the basis of disabilities. This act required that parents take any cases of disability discrimination to the courts. Because of the high litigation costs of this act, The Education for All Handicapped Children Act fabricated the option to use an administrative hearing instead.
            In 1975 the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) was enacted and in 1990 it was replaced with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). They replaced the Education for All Handicapped Children Act with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in order to put more focus on the individual rather than their condition. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act also promoted research and technology development and details on transition programs for higher education programs that educate children in their neighborhood schools as opposed to separated schools.

What I Think About the IDEA

  When people think of disabilities, generally, the first thing that comes to mind is the mentally handicapped. Until the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, I believe that disabilities were seen as someone that is mentally challenged. As defined by the Individuals With Disabilities Education act a disability is a child “with intellectual disabilities, hearing impairments (including deafness), speech or language impairments, visual impairments (including blindness), serious emotional disturbance (referred to in this chapter as “emotional disturbance”), orthopedic impairments, autism, traumatic brain injury, other health impairments, or specific learning disabilities; and who, by reason thereof, needs special education and related services,” ( 20 U.S. Code § 1401 - Definitions). I love that they don’t discount for any type of disability that may infringe on someone’s learning.
  Just like all other legislation they have kept the wording very vague in order to account for all that may be considered a minority (in my opinion it would be individuals without mental disabilities). The vague wording of this mandate has not only been beneficial, but also a burden to all those involved. The wording of this allows anyone who is considered disabled to get any services that they request and can distinguish that it will improve their education in any way. This means that people can over exaggerate their cases and request more than what they need to get the same education as the average student. I could say that I needed a prosthetic for gym class in order to help me play sports that are in the curriculum just like the rest of the students and they would have to provide that for me. Did I really need it? No, but if I explained my need for it then they would have to give it to me. This would also cost our school a lot of money to get me that prosthetic. It would probably cost them $100,000 and they would be money spent out of our schools pocket in order to benefit one person. I would rather buy something that benefits the whole rather than a fraction of people.
  Speaking of money, I think that this mandate can get too costly. According to The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: Why IDEA is Crucial to Bridging the Gap, “The process of ensuring a free and appropriate public education includes a lot of bureaucracy. The process requires a lot of documentation, time, and money for administrative staff, legal counsel, and service providers.” Because this mandate is unfunded, schools are forced to pay a lot of money in order to help these students. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if our schools had this money to contribute. I know my school doesn’t have $100,00 just lying around to help the disabled, we had trouble getting paper in our school this year! PAPER! I just don’t know if we as Americans can afford to help those in need when we can’t even help ourselves.

Conclusion and Suggestions

  As for regulation, I think that it is hard to decipher what is a true case of need and what isn’t. I think that if they had some type of screening mechanism where they saw how the child learned and got along without the assistance of whatever is being requested then they could see more clearly if this would really benefit that student.
            For the funding of this mandate, although I know that they don’t have the money either, I think that the government needs to step in and help. They should first start by funding low income schools with high rated of disabled students and alleviate the rest. Taxes are on the rise and they can only go up so much more before the American public starts handle things more irrationally. I think that if the government stepped in and helped to fund this mandate that the education for the average American student will be much better and the public will appreciate our government that much more.
  If it wasn’t for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, I probably wouldn’t be given the same educational opportunities that I have today and that we pride ourselves in as Americans. All in all, I think that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has made a positive impact on our school systems, but there are still some provisions to made.