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The first special class for the deaf children in a public school was held in Boston in 1869. In 1896, the first special class for children who were mentally disabled was held in Rhode Island and in 1899 a class for students with physical impairments was formed as well.
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In 1954, the U. S. Supreme Court issued a landmark civil rights decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The Supreme Court found that African-American children had the right to equal educational opportunities. After the decision in Brown, parents of children with disabilities began bringing lawsuits against their school districts for excluding children with disabilities. The parents argued, by excluding these children, schools were discriminating against the children due to their disabilities.
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In 1966, Congress amended the ESEA to establish a grant program to help states in the “initiation, expansion, and improvement of programs and projects . . . for the education of handicapped children.” In 1970, Congress enacted the Education of the Handicapped Act (P.L. 91-230) in an effort to encourage states to develop educational programs for individuals with disabilities.
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PARC dealt with the exclusion of children with mental retardation from public schools. In the subsequent settlement, it was agreed that educational placement decisions must include a process of parental participation and a means to resolve disputes. Mills involved the practice of suspending, expelling and excluding children with disabilities from the District of Columbia public schools. The school district’s primary defense in Mills was the high cost of educating children with disabilities.
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Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act was signed into law stating, “no otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States shall solely on the basis of his handicap, be excluded from the participation, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Basically stating no program receiving federal funds could discriminate against a person with a disability.
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On November 19, 1975, Congress enacted Public Law 94-142 in 1975, also known as The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. Congress intended that all children with disabilities would “have a right to education, and to establish a process by which State and local educational agencies may be held accountable for providing educational services for all handicapped children.”
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Changes and additions to law included: requirement of students to obtain a transition plan by the age of 16 years with activities and inter agency linkages for living arrangements, vocational training, and/or additional education. Added social work and rehabilitation counseling as related services. Added autism and traumatic brain injury as disability categories.
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The 1997 Amendment to “Individuals with Disabilities Education Act” (IDEA) added ten changes to the previous law regarding discipline, participation in the general education curriculum and state assessments, transition planning, assistive technology, related services and structure of the IEP.
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The purpose of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is “to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments.”
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The IDEA 2004 re authorization emphasized the need to align IDEA with other school improvement efforts. Congress found that: the education of children with disabilities can be made more effective by, having high expectations for such children and ensuring their access to the general education curriculum in the regular classroom, meet developmental goals and challenging expectations that have been established for all children.
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