The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

The History of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

In the early 1970s, only 20% of children with disabilities were educated in America's public schools. These students were denied educational opportunities in two major ways. First, many students were completely excluded from public schools. In fact, Congressional findings in 1974 indicated that more than 1.75 million students with disabilities did not receive educational services. Second, more than three million students with disabilities who were admitted to school did not receive an education that was appropriate to their needs. Because of limited educational opportunities offered by public schools, families were often forced to look elsewhere for appropriate services, often at great distances from their homes and at their own expense. This lack of educational programs and the haphazard nature of services for students with disabilities often led parents and advocates to seek solutions through court actions.

The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s encouraged the use of courts in forcing states to provide appropriate public education for disabled children's unique educational needs. In Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in public education. The Supreme Court ruled that segregation denied equal educational opportunity and thus was a violation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The high court held that when a state provides an education to some of its citizens, it must do so for all its citizens on an equal basis. Basing their arguments on this decision, advocates for students with disabilities argued that if racial segregation was a denial of equal educational opportunity, then the exclusion of students with disabilities from schools was a denial as well.

Beginning in the early 1970s, advocates for students with disabilities began to sue states, claiming that exclusion and inappropriate educational services violated students’ rights to equal educational opportunity under the U.S. Constitution. In 1972, two landmark court cases, Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens (PARC) v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Mills v. Board of Education, helped establish the right of students with disabilities to receive public education. Both cases resulted in schools being required to provide access to students with disabilities.

These cases clearly established the rights of students with disabilities to participate in publicly supported educational programs. Largely because of these and other right-to-education cases, by 1972, nearly 70% of the states had passed legislation requiring publicly supported education for students with disabilities. Despite these rulings and the enactment [Page 1368]of laws in states establishing these educational rights, many students with disabilities were still denied services. Additionally, a great variability of level and quality of services existed across the states. Because of this unevenness in the special education services, many parents, educators, and legislators believed that a federal standard was needed.

Federal Legislation and the Education of Students with Disabilities

Given the challenges faced by students with disabilities in their efforts to access educational services, the uneven attempts to provide education to these students, and the activism by concerned parents, the U.S. Congress began enacting legislation to ensure the educational rights of students with disabilities. In this legislation, Congress sought to establish a federal mandatory base to create a floor of educational responsibility that cut across state and local boundaries.

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