Caught in the Middle: Whatever Happened to the Individuals With Disabilities Act?
No child wants to feel like a failure. No educator wants to feel like they have failed a child. Most children in special education are identified as having a specific learning disability or language impairment. Yet nationally only 67% of children with disabilities will graduate from high school and almost one and five will drop out.
In 1975 Gerald Ford signed into law what would become the Individuals with Disability Education Act (IDEA). Previously there was no guarantee that a child with disabilities would be provided an education, let alone be allowed into a public school. But even as Ford signed the legislation he lamented its shortcomings, “[T]he funding levels proposed in this bill will simply not be possible…” Those ripple effects continue to this day.
In 1990, the addition of the IDEA’s central principles of a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), Appropriate Evaluation, Individualized Education Plan (IEP), Least Restrictive Environment, Parent Participation, and Procedural Safeguards granted the families of disabled children a formal and standardized means advocacy and redress.
Parents are driven to advocacy by instinct and science. A growing body of data has illuminated the dire consequences of a failed education. Up to 85 percent of youth in juvenile detention have disabilities that made them eligible for special education services, yet only 37 percent had received services while in school. Adding to CONTINUE READING: Caught in the Middle: Whatever Happened to the Individuals With Disabilities Act?
