Special Education Law Analysis Education in the United States has had a reputation of un-uniformity and mistreatment of certain groups especially students with disabilities. However, the recent past has yielded some advancement. Federal legislation has put into place three major laws that have lead to better treatment and higher quality education of students, especially those with disabilities. These laws are the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, Section 504 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, and No Child Left Behind. Together these laws have formed the current education standard in the United States providing for better education for all students.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act
History
Historically, children with disabilities have had few rights and little protection when it came to education. Before the mid 1970s, it was not unusual for children with disabilities to be turned away from public schools and if they were able to attend a school, there was nothing in place to assure that these children were receiving the attention and assistance that they needed. In the 1960s and 1970s parents of children with disabilities began to see that something had to change to allow their children to receive a quality education so families began suing state entities to gain access to educational services for their children (Smith, Polloway, Patton, & Dowdy, 2012). Congress decided to take a step forward and attempted to persuade states to provide educational services to children with disabilities and this led to the passage of the Education for all Handicapped Children Act (EHA) in 1975. Education is a facet that is under the direct of state legislation; therefore, states were not required to comply with the new act. To persuade state governments to adopt the law, it was promised that forty percent of the funds used to educate children with disabilities would be
References: Assistance to states for the education of children with disabilities and preschool grants for children with disabilities; final rule, 71 Fed. Reg. 46540 (2006) 34 CFR pt. 300-301. No child left behind act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-110, 115 Stat. 1425 (2002) Smith, T.E., Polloway, E.A., Patton, J. R., & Dowdy, C. A. (2012). Teaching students with special needs in inclusive settings (6th Ed.). Boston: Pearson. Vocational rehabilitation act of 1973, Pub. L. No. 93-112, 93 Stat. 8070 (1973)