Commission on the Education of the Deaf

On August 4, 1986, at the request of President Ronald Reagan and at the direction of the U.S. Congress, a blue-ribbon commission was established as part of the Education of the Deaf Act (1986) to look into the quality of public and [Page 138]private education offered to Deaf children. The commission was asked to look into the full range of education, from pre-K to graduate school as well as vocational schools. The ambitious agenda—the final report, more than 160 pages long, was delivered to Congress nearly 2 years later—was compelled as much by Reagan’s own interest in the deaf (he himself was partially deaf and wore a hearing aid) as by advocates for Deaf education, citing a reluctance on the part of school systems and ...