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Throughout history, there has been an enormous disparity in attitudes toward and treatment of individuals with disabilities in the workplace and the community. The advent of universal public education during the 19th century added another area in which this disparity would play out.

Similar to many other universal rights, publicly supported education was denied to many individuals with disabilities in the United States up through the first half of the 20th century. In the 1950s, organizations of parents and professionals coalesced to press for the right of children with disabilities to receive a public education, and political leaders gradually began to acknowledge that right through legislation and court decisions. Educators responded by establishing special education programs and the bureaucracy by which students in need of special education could be identified and provided with services. The first significant federal legislation was Public Law No. 94-142, The Education of All Children. Passed in 1975, this law established three bedrock principles of special education. These principles have since expanded through several critical court decisions and the reenactments of the law. The current version is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, commonly known as IDEA 2004.

The first principle is that all children, regardless of ability, are entitled to a free, appropriate public education. Districts must provide programming with a suitable curriculum and instruction for each individual child with special needs. A continuum of services now exists, ranging from assistance within the regular education classroom to placement in a hospital or institution.

The second principle is a criterion for placement known as the least restrictive environment. This means that, of the range of settings where appropriate services can be provided for an individual child, the first choice must be the setting that is as close as possible to the setting the child would be educated in if the child had no disability.

The third principle is that children's right to be educated with their peers must not be infringed upon without their consent, or more typically, that of their parents. Federal law clearly defines the procedural safeguards in the provisions for obtaining informed parental consent before any decision is made regarding evaluation, classification, or placement.

Embedded in these principles is the intent to provide services that are nondiscriminatory in nature and designed to enable individuals to lead productive and independent lives as adults. However, progress in the education of students with special needs has not resolved many of the issues that confront individuals with disabilities. In addition, the classification and placement procedures of children have produced uncertainty and conflict among parents and educators. At best, the process can be categorized as a work in progress.

Changes in terminology reflect efforts to avoid unfairly categorizing children receiving special education services. Replacing the term handicapped is the term disabled, making a finer distinction between the two terms. A disability refers to a condition where an individual is unable to perform certain life skills because of a loss of function in one of the bodily systems. Handicap is situation specific; children with an attention deficit disorder may have a handicap where they are required to sit and listen for long periods of time, whereas on the playground no handicap is evident. In addition, leaders in the field of special education maintain that the language used in speaking about children in special education is important. Naming children by their diagnosis, as in "a learning disabled child" or "the autistic," suggests that the disability is the major aspect of the child's life. Advocates instead promote the use of nomenclature that emphasizes the person rather than the disability, as in "individuals with disabilities" or "a child with autism."

A more intense debate focuses on the practice of labeling children by their diagnosis in the process of identifying those in need of special education services. Supporters of this practice maintain that the use of a diagnosis to categorize a child helps to suggest means of remediation and programming. Opponents criticize the stigmatizing nature of the process of labeling; labels gradually slip into public use and often acquire a pejorative connotation. In addition, within disability categories, wide variations exist in ability, motivation, and attitude that are masked by a label. Labels also influence expectations. These can limit consideration of all the strengths and weaknesses of a child in formulating individualized goals and services.

Another issue related to labeling is the disproportionately higher classification of students from minority groups. African Americans constitute 16.6 percent of the school-age population but a larger proportion (20.5 percent) of the students classified for special education, a fact that engenders widespread concern and criticism. African American students are 2.99 times more likely to be classified as having mental retardation and 2.21 times more likely to be classified as having an emotional disturbance than all other racial groups combined. Some experts link this disproportion in classification to income; 25 percent of students with disabilities live in poverty compared with 20 percent of the general population. Social welfare programs, preschool programs such as Head Start, and increased preparation in helping teachers teach children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds attempt to reverse the trend.

Debate over the setting for delivery of special education services reflects concerns over both the discriminatory nature of isolating children from their peers and the effectiveness of instruction in a special education setting. Inclusion is the term to denote the trend to keep a classified child in the general education classroom with the delivery of appropriate services. The debate largely focuses on the second aspect of this issue: the effectiveness of instruction in inclusive settings. Advocates of inclusion point to the stimulation of interaction of peers who model learning and behavior and the benefits for children without disabilities to learn to interact with a wider range of abilities. Opponents argue that the goals and pace of the curriculum in the general education classroom are too far removed from what children with moderate to severe disabilities need to learn and that their presence in the classroom is disruptive to the learning of their nondisabled peers. Research has not provided definitive answers because it is not entirely acceptable to place children in control groups, and challenges remain to providing remedial services within the general education classroom. However, as a result of this push, the number of classified students spending 79 percent or more of their day in the regular class increased from 33 percent to 46 percent between 1990 and 2000.

Concern over the effectiveness of special education has been an issue since initial efficacy studies in the 1950s. Part of this concern is related to budget issues. On average, it costs approximately $6,000 in additional funds to educate a child with a disability. It is evident too, that despite extensive interventions, most students in special education continue to lag behind their nondisabled peers on measures of achievement. For example, on the National Assessment of Educational Progress administered in 2002, 36 percent of classified eighth graders scored at the proficiency level, compared with 79 percent of their nondisabled peers.

This concern with efficacy manifests itself in two ways. The first is an increase in the degree of accountability in special education. Children with disabilities are required to work toward the same curriculum standards as their nondisabled peers. As a corollary, progress toward those standards must be measured and documented. P.L No. 107-110, the No Child Left Behind Act (2001), mandates assessment of children with disabilities and establishes requirements for corrective action if targets are not reached. Opponents of No Child Left Behind have criticized the assumption that, with effective instruction, nearly all students with disabilities can meet grade-level curriculum standards.

Special educators and laypeople are also troubled by signs that transition to a productive adulthood for individuals with disabilities is often an unrealized dream. Nationally, only 48 percent of classified students leave high school with a diploma. They also endure rates of unemployment at significantly higher rates than the general population, ranging from 55 to 79 percent of those students with moderate to severe disabilities. Studies tend to show that classified students are often unprepared for the world of work. As a result, new legislation requires an increased emphasis on transition planning from age 14 on up. Components of the planning include consideration of a student's abilities and preferences, the provision of school experiences that would help students achieve occupational goals, and collaboration between school, family, and public agencies to identify postsecondary resources for education, employment, and recreational activities.

Bibliography:

1) Heward, William. 2006. Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

2) Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, P.L. No. 108-446 (IDEA 2004).

3) Ysseldyke, James, Bob Algozzine, and Martha Thurlow. 2000. Critical Issues in Special Education. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

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