America has come a long way since the 1927 Supreme Court ruling of Buck v. Bell, which legalized the forced sterilization of people with disabilities or mental illnesses under the umbrella of 20th-century eugenic policy.
In 1975, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, or IDEA, was passed with expressed support from both Republicans and Democrats, expanding public school access and accommodations for individuals with disabilities. IDEA, however, is funded and administered by state governments rather than the federal government, meaning that the quality of resources mandated by IDEA can vary wildly by state. Impoverished areas of states like Illinois and Missouri have their funding reduced by as much as 18%, for example.
IDEA has been amended several times throughout the years to further its scope. It was first amended in 1976 to increase students eligible for funding from a minimum age of three to enabling coverage at birth. It was again changed in 1986 to facilitate the creation of Individual Education Plans, or IEPs. IEPs allow for students with mental or physical disabilities to receive academic accommodations from the school both inside and outside of the classroom, which is why some students are permitted to access small-group testing rooms or a scribe to assist them with note-taking.
IDEA was amended twice in 1990. Once on New Year’s Day to add autism and traumatic brain injuries to the list of covered disabilities, as well as mandating the creation of an Individual Transition Plan, or ITP, as part of an IEP-eligible student’s resources to prepare them for success after graduation. In June of that year, the definition of “developmental delay,” as perceived in certain intellectual disabilities, was expanded to include children up to the age of nine rather than stopping at five, and restated that all students should have access to the same educational curriculum.
In 2004, IDEA was reauthorized through the No Child Left Behind Act, or NCLB, and has been renewed numerous times throughout the 2010s.
With all these victories and expansions now, does that mean public schools are truly equal for students with disabilities in the modern day? Unfortunately not. As detailed in an article released by NPR that highlights the day-to-day routines of two special education students enrolled in two different public elementary schools in Oklahoma, programs can even vary by individual academic institution, often dictated by the policies each enacts. The more successful of the two students, Kellen, an 11-year-old boy, benefits from inclusion with his classmates allowing him to make friends, study and integrate into the school more effectively. He is on par academically with his peers.
The second student, Adaline, a 7-year-old girl, receives a large majority of her instruction and material in a separate area from the general student population. Despite suffering from the same non-intellectual condition and studying within the same state as Kellen, Adaline struggles significantly more with feeling included and accepted, as well as achieving academic success. Her mother is attempting to remedy this by asking for her daughter to spend more time with her peers in non-segregated classrooms, but, as she puts it, “There’s no IDEA-police.” This means that the school lacks a sufficient watchdog to ensure that accommodation properly takes place. Because of this, accessibility disputes are often settled in a private, case-by-case manner with the school’s administration exclusively.
Speaking from personal experience, as someone with cerebral palsy who is about to complete their final year of public schooling, this method of resolution disproportionately disadvantages those with disabilities. Administrators and high-ranking employees of the school, who are often oblivious to the injustices faced by the student at school from separation or lack of accessibility, can easily smooth-talk their way through a dispute with parents using vague, equivocal language whilst potentially working to achieve very little or nothing at all.
In a response to NPR detailed within the article, Adaline’s school superintendent challenged the notion of segregation, stating that the school offers “a wide range of specialized services based on student needs and abilities, sometimes in special settings.”
While this response is technically true when taken at face value, what it fails to mention by omission is that the “special settings” Adaline “sometimes” receives take up nearly half of her school day, severely limiting her opportunities to befriend, learn and bond with other peers her age.
Sure, the publication of articles like NPR’s story critical of the school may spook administrators into enacting small, immediate changes in an attempt to save face, but without a larger body to oversee them, it remains to be seen whether change might occur in the first place.
Recent developments only serve to elevate this concern further. With President Trump’s executive orders to overhaul the federal Department of Education, much of whose work is dedicated to addressing civil rights and discrimination disputes for students nationwide, it is uncertain how systemic issues like these will be handled in the future, especially considering the notion that these decisions will now be handled by individual states that have differing budgets and priorities from one another.