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"Disability History: Early and Shifting Attitudes of Treatment (U.S. National Park Service)"

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"Disability History: Early and Shifting Attitudes of Treatment (U.S. National Park Service)"

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This article discusses the awful treatments and conditions disabled individuals would be subjected to. It was mentioned that the hospitals and asylums had started due to families and towns having to care for those individuals and simply not wanting to. Treatments and medical services were often barbaric, such as electroshock therapy, hydrotherapy, and worst of all, lobotomies.

This is important due to the fact that a lot of families now know how to care for individuals at their own homes. New facilities have opened up for those that need care for their children. A lot of families and parents know the horrors involved with facilities now, so a lot choose to care for their kids at home or in new, creative ways.

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The Bethphage Mission, Nebraska.
Photo by Grant Landreth, from the National Register of Historic Places nomination.

Religious organizations also supported the concept of moral treatment. The Friends Asylum for the Insane in Philadelphia, founded in 1813, is one such example. Doctors there used a combination of Quaker views and medical science of the era. This was the first private, nonprofit exclusively mental hospital in the US. The Bethphage Mission in Nebraska was another religiously-inspired hospital. The Mission, opened in 1914, followed the work of the Swedish and Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Friends Hospital, Bethphage Mission, and other religious hospitals are still active today.

Many hospitals stopped practicing this version of moral treatment in the 1900s for a number of reasons. State legislators decided that the cost of these programs was more than they were willing to spend. Hospitals also shut down their farms and workshops. Hospital superintendents instead focused on research and new medical treatments. Electroshock therapy and hydrotherapy were among two new methods. With electroshock therapy, small electric shocks were passed through the brains of patients. Hydrotherapy, or water exercises, were developed to help patients.

Doctors were also influenced by popular ideas of eugenics in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Eugenics is the misguided belief that controlling genetics could improve the human race. Some doctors practiced forced sterilization on persons they deemed unfit, removing their ability to have children. Other physicians also performed lobotomies to cut connections between parts of the brain, believing lobotomies could significantly reduce "mania" or "highly disturbing" behavior. Thousands of lobotomies were performed in the 1940s and '50s, though this practice faded in popularity by mid-century. Doctors and healthcare advocates increasingly questioned the effectiveness of surgery, instead opting for medication and other methods of care to treat patients.

From the 1960s to the 1990s, many hospitals and psychiatric institutions shut down, giving way to state-funded programs and services in place of these hospitals. These services strive to address an individual's needs on a case-by-case basis, rather than aiming to "cure" patients with blanket treatments. Changes in treatment of people with disabilities have shifted largely due to the emergence of the disability rights movement in the early 20th century. Individuals' demands for rights, self-advocacy, and independence have changed the perception of care. The concept, "Nothing about us without us," which was adopted in the 1980s and '90s by disability activists, has altered the decision-making process. Today, there are increased efforts for physicians, caregivers, and people with disabilities to work together to support an individual's well-being.

Article by Perri Meldon.

This article is part of theTelling All Americans' Stories Disability History Series. The series focuses on telling selected stories through historic places. It offers a glimpse into the rich and varied history of Americans with disabilities.

References:
[1] Dix, Dorothea, Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts. Boston: Munroe & Francis, 1843. Excerpt.
[2] Nomination Form of National Register of Historic Places: Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Hospital and State School System.
[3] Gerald Grob, The State and the Mentally Ill: A History of Worcester State Hospital in Massachusetts, 1830-1920, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966.
[4] Nomination Form of National Register of Historic Places: Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Hospital and State School System.

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Disability History: Early and Shifting Attitudes of Treatment (U.S. National Park Service)

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Religious organizations also supported the concept of moral treatment. The Friends Asylum for the Insane in Philadelphia, founded in 1813, is one such example. Doctors there used a combination of Quaker views and medical science of the era. This was the first private, nonprofit exclusively mental hospital in the US.

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"Individuals with Disabilities Education Act"

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"Individuals with Disabilities Education Act"

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This article clearly defines what the IDEA Act is and the changes that have been made. It states how the government protects and funds those with disabilities and supports them through education and preparing them for the next stages of their life.

This connects with today due to the Act still being extremely relevant today. It continues to protect and defend kids with disabilities in schools and beyond that. Some still need help with deciding their future, and the IDEA helps them and their families find the next steps in their future.

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Individuals with Disabilities Education Act​

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The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was originally called the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (EHA). President Gerald Ford signed the legislation with the goal of […]

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Much like the title, the article goes on to explain the history with special education. It talks about funding for those specific students, colleges and schools that opened up for the specific categories of disabled students. It also talks about multiple Acts from the government to protect and support the students and families dealing with disabilities.

This is extremely important for disabled students looking for a college or university specifically for them and with their community involved. They should know that they are not alone and that they will have some federal support to fall back on.

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Raising a child with special education needs is both challenging and rewarding. Each child is unique and requires an individualized strategy to help them succeed in a cookie-cutter educational climate. America's history with special education is relatively short, but our country has come a long way in this area.

Today, there are more students with learning disabilities than ever before. Marking an upward trend, the National Center for Education Statistics notes that the 2009-10 school year saw 6.5 million students enrolled in programs through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) . That was 13% of public school students that year. In 2020, while overall public school enrollment was down by a full 3%, of all students enrolled in public education, 15% were eligible for and enrolled under IDEA. That means that in the fall of 2020, the public school system processed 7.2 million students with learning disabilities.

Overall, the U.S. is seeing an upward trend in the necessity for programs such as those laid out with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, making special education a priority on the education front. By learning from our past, we can improve our future. So, how far back does education for America's students with disabilities go?

The Flashpoint

The American School for the Deaf (ASD) is especially significant since it pioneered the way forward, opening the door for progress in this area. The school brought dignity and education to those with physical handicaps in a time when, at best, society often ignored the disabled.

Over the next several decades, various schools emerged all over the country with missions to serve America's youth with disabilities. Educators founded additional schools for the deaf, schools for the blind, and other institutions for special education, bringing hope and knowledge to thousands of American students.

While special education had begun in the early 1800s, higher learning, such as college or university, was still worlds away for students in the handicap arena. With no institutes for higher learning available to special needs students, obtaining a collegiate degree was just a fantasy.

To date, Gallaudet University remains the only college dedicated to the deaf, blind, and mute communities.

Parents Choose to Act

Between 1933 and the 1950s, parents of disabled students began speaking out en masse. Parent advocacy groups popped up all over the country as awareness of the sad state of special education gained more attention.

In 1933, the cause got its first significant attention as the " Cuyahoga Council for Retarded Citizens " was founded. The first organized group of its kind, the council fought their point and succeeded. Preceden explains this small but significant victory . "A Parental Advocacy Group composed of five mothers of children with mental retardation... came to Cuyahoga, Ohio to protest their children's exclusion from public schools. This led to the establishment of a special class for the children, even though the parents sponsored it."

By 1950, there were 88 such parental advocacy groups nationwide, each fighting tenaciously for their children. This was a major step toward true educational equality for special needs children in the U.S.

Discrimination

Not only were disabled and special needs students ignored by compulsory education laws, but when they attended school, they were in danger of being kicked out.

However, Brown v. Board of Education changed much on the legal scene for special education. The basis of the case was that no child should be segregated or denied education based on race. The court ruled in favor of Brown, legally ending racial segregation in schools. While this case had its roots in racial segregation, the impact of this landmark legal battle reverberated in other areas of education.

Disability Justice notes , "This decision provided the constitutional foundation for parents of children with disabilities and disability rights activists to press for equal educational opportunities for all children, including those with developmental and other disabilities."

Despite its racial roots, Brown v. Board of Education is heralded as a resounding victory for special needs students. However, it would still be an uphill battle for these families for years to come.

Federal Funding

Historically, federal support and funding for special needs and disabled students were unreliable at best and practically nonexistent in reality. However, that changed in 1965 when President Johnson made good on his "War on Poverty."

Part of his plan involved federal aid for special needs students. State governments had the job of distributing the earmarked funds as they saw fit within their own education systems. This encouraged the expansion and growth of state departments of education and shaped the education system we are familiar with today.

This step jump-started special education as we see it now.

Parental Rights

These rulings were significant for families nationwide. Parents were empowered to be involved in their children's education and now had the legal ability to advocate for their children.

Legally Protected

Despite the tremendous progress made toward equal education for disabled and special needs students, there were still no legal protections by law for these children. That changed in 1973. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 included Section 504.

The Modern Era

1975 brought sweeping progress to the cause of special education, which snowballed into what we see today. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act mandated that states receiving federal funds must provide equal access to education for children with disabilities, including one free meal per day. The following year an amendment was passed, establishing that families were entitled to the services from the child's birth.

Later the same year, a new acronym became a staple in special education when President Clinton revised the name of The Education for all Handicapped Children's Act to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

The evolution of special education continued.

Special Education Today

No system is ever perfect, but American special education has come a long way in 200 years. From the wholesale neglect and abuse of disabled and special needs children to offering individualized and specific education on a national scale, prioritization of and appreciation for these unique students have become a critical focus of our educational climate today-and rightfully so.

As our country continues to build in this area of education, we look at our history to improve our future. Special education is a vital arena requiring constant advancement and continual development.

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Raising a child with special education needs is both challenging and rewarding. Each child is unique and requires an individualized strategy to help them succeed in a cookie-cutter educational climate. America's history with special education is relatively short, but our country has come a long way in this area.

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"Parallels In Time | A History of Developmental Disabilities | Part One"

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"Parallels In Time | A History of Developmental Disabilities | Part One"

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This article is long, being split into short pages going over topics relating to those with disabilities. Two topics they bring up are that those individuals were not seen as "human", even to some professionals, and the first group the Nazi's were sent to exterminate were the mentally disabled. They have always been targeted and downplayed.

This article was used to understand that for a while, disabilities made some “not human” in some peoples eyes. It is unethical and disgusting that people can see other humans that way just because of their disabilities. This was to bring awareness to that viewpoint and let the readers know that there are some people think like that and to give them another perspective on the topic.

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BEGINNING OF SPECIAL EDUCATION

This period was marked by the emergence of special education. As teachers in public schools became aware of the increasing numbers of students with learning disabilities who were labeled "backward" or "feebleminded," they called for special classes and teachers to educate them. Rhode Island opened the first public special education class in the U.S. in 1896. By 1923, almost 34,000 students were in special education classes.

In search of training techniques for these children, the schools turned to the institutions. Some institutions expanded their facilities to incorporate "special" schools. Other institutions offered classes to school teachers on training techniques.

THE ALMOSTS

During the early years of special education, however, the "menace" theme was prevalent. While many teachers believed in the benefits of special education, professionals such as Dr. Goddard proclaimed that mental retardation was hereditary, a social problem, and could not be improved by education.

Even professional publications perpetuated this message. The Almosts: A Study of the Feeble-Minded was a popular textbook. The "Almosts" referred to people with mental retardation as almost human.

In this atmosphere, families who had a child labeled "feebleminded" were stigmatized as morally bad or genetically flawed. The message given to families was to institutionalize their children or keep them out of sight.

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The Minnesota Governor's Council on Devlopmental Disabilities

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Parallels In Time | A History of Developmental Disabilities | Part One

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Parallels In Time, a History of Developmental Disabilities

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"From Segregation to Strengths: A Personal History of Special Education"

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"From Segregation to Strengths: A Personal History of Special Education"

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Through Michael Wehmeyer's personal experience and teaching with students with disabilities, he discusses how harsh education used to be. He begins with his personal recount of how segregated and offhanded the education system was towards those with disabilities and talks about how it has transformed into something better. He emphasizes the importance of inclusive education and how students with disabilities need to use their voice to speak up for themselves and for their educational rights.

I used this article to show a first hand viewpoint from someone in this educational field. I think it is important for us to understand what it is like for the teachers and how they perceive everything. Michael perfectly explains how things are getting better, but there is still a long way to go to be the best.

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The current upheaval in public education creates possibilities to reimagine the role special educators can play in maximizing learning for all students.
At the beginning of my career, I was among the first wave of special education teachers who entered the field after the passage of the 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA, which later became the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA). At the time, I worked for an agency that had contracted with a large public school district to "take care of" adolescents who needed extensive supports. Both the district leaders and the head of the agency assumed that these young people could not learn and did not belong in the regular school system, so, in their eyes, my role was mainly custodial.

The next fall, when I took a public school position teaching adolescents with similar support needs, I found myself working in a self-contained classroom on its own campus, separated from other schools. Several of my students were in the public school system for the first time - and some had no previous experience in any educational setting at all.

In both of these positions, I found colleagues whose aspiration, like mine, was to be more than just a caregiver. For instance, numerous fellow teachers who saw the potential of "supported employment" (which assists people with disabilities in obtaining paid jobs) tried to find our students jobs in the community. One speech and language pathologist spent his own time and money to create such opportunities at a local greenhouse. At each turn, however, we ran into barriers erected by other adults who thought they knew what was possible (or not possible) for these young people.

Years later, in the late 1980s, I worked as a psychologist at an institution for people with intellectual disability. This euphemistically named "state school" was under a class-action lawsuit, which led to the requirement that staff implement a number of practices that were innovative for the time, such as positive approaches to behavior modification and person-centered planning. Nearly every annual planning meeting to define services and goals for each person resulted in a plan to move that person into the community - but, in fact, the staff never followed through on these plans. Nor, I came to realize, did they have any real knowledge of the people they were supposed to be supporting. For instance, at each planning meeting, staff were required to begin by listing the person's strengths and abilities. I remember one such meeting, concerning a young man who had a wonderful laugh and a sunny disposition, as well as multiple disabilities and extensive support needs, where the only strength the case manager could come up with was his prepaid burial plan. Eventually, the lawsuit forced the facility to close, and many of the people who lived there were dispersed to other state-run institutions.

Why do I begin with my personal employment history? Simply put, my perspective on special and inclusive education was shaped by those early experiences working in segregated agencies, schools, and institutions. And my various professional experiences since then have only strengthened my belief that many of the systemic barriers that face students with disabilities can be traced back to a primary cause: other people's assumptions about what people with disabilities can or cannot achieve.

A long history of segregation and inequality

I live just 26 miles from the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas. When you enter that museum - located in a brick school building constructed in 1926 as a segregated elementary school for African American children - the first thing you see is a plaque inscribed with these famous words from the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 ruling: "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." More than four decades later, in the landmark 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C., the Court made essentially the same point about the institutionalization of people with disabilities, ruling that this practice amounts to a discriminatory and unjust form of segregation, in violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The segregation of students with disabilities, like the segregation of Black children, has a very long history in our country, and the effects of that history linger. Like the Brown decision, EHA represented an important victory, but it didn't wipe the slate clean. For almost a century, school officials had argued that children with disabilities were uneducable and needed to be kept apart from their peers - kept apart, they said, both for their own protection and the protection of society writ large. These assumptions and biases were common in the late 1970s, when I started my career, and they're still visible today.

These young people have helped me see more and more clearly that the field's emphasis on "disability" has limited our efforts to serve students and lowered our expectations for them.

Our system of special education has a long history, too, predating EHA by many decades. The first recorded public school class for students who were disabled was established by Elizabeth Ferrell in the New York City public schools in 1899 (Kode, 2017); by the 1920s, hundreds of school districts in more than half of the states had established public school special education programs, almost all of them housed in separate classrooms or buildings (Ferguson, 2014). The special education programs of the late 1970s simply continued the practices that were in place long before EHA was passed.

Don't get me wrong: EHA was a landmark civil rights act that opened the doors to public schooling for thousands and thousands of students who had been denied education prior to 1975, including some of the students I taught. The legislation was startlingly original, too, in asserting that students with disabilities should be educated with their nondisabled peers, if possible. But that revolutionary idea was quickly diluted by regulations that required schools to provide a continuum of alternate placement options, such as special classes and special schools. That is, the old assumption that some people "need" to be separated from others, ostensibly for their own benefit, lived on (Ferguson, 2014; Smith & Wehmeyer, 2022).

Toward strengths and self-determination

While my experiences have taught me to be wary of deeply rooted cultural assumptions about what people with disabilities can and cannot do, they've also given me hope. As a researcher and advocate, I've studied and sought to promote the self-determination of young people with disabilities. Perhaps more important, I've had many opportunities to listen to people with disabilities and learn about their own desire to live independent and self-determined lives. These young people have helped me see more and more clearly that the field's emphasis on "disability" has limited our efforts to serve students and lowered our expectations for them. I think it is increasingly becoming evident that unless we adopt strengths-based approaches to the education of learners with disabilities, we will not achieve the goals that most of us desire for students.

The Supreme Court offered a similar argument in its 2016 ruling in Endrew F. v. Douglas County, a case that has already had profound implications for the field of special education:

When all is said and done, a student offered an educational program providing "merely more than de minimis" progress from year to year can hardly be said to have been offered an education at all. For children with disabilities, receiving instruction that aims so low would be tantamount to "sitting idly . . . awaiting the time when they were old enough to "drop out."
It requires an educational program reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child's circumstances. (p. 14)

By arguing that special education students should be able to make progress that is more than just "de minimis" (i.e., lacking in significance, importance, or value), the Court set the bar significantly higher than it had in its 1982 ruling in Board of Education vs. Rowley, when it defined an appropriate education program as one from which a student might "reasonably benefit." This vague and low-level standard made it all too easy for school districts to comply with federal requirements just by fiddling with their paperwork, without actually doing anything to improve (Voulgarides, 2018, 2022).

In Endrew F., by contrast, the Court made it clear that if students with disabilities were making only minimal progress, then they were not receiving an appropriate education. Instead, the Court stated that each "child's educational program must be appropriately ambitious in light of his circumstances" and that "goals may differ, but every child should have the chance to meet challenging objectives" (p. 3). This fundamentally changed what it means for an education to be considered "appropriate" for individual students with disabilities, raising important new questions: How can we achieve this higher standard? Is that possible within the current special education system, or do we need to jettison that system and create a new one that is better equipped to provide more ambitious, challenging, and personalized supports, services, and instruction?

The limits of progress

I understand that it's difficult to achieve meaningful change in public education and that it's always easier to follow the letter of the law than to embrace it in spirit. This has certainly been the case in the field of special education.

The most recent Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) report on IDEA (U.S. Department of Education, 2020) indicated that 64% of the country's students receiving special education services were educated in general education settings 80% or more of their day, which looks like great progress, given that just 47% of special education students met that benchmark in 2000. And it has been great progress for some students. Drill down a bit deeper, though, and the picture doesn't look so positive, especially for students with intellectual disability: The 2020 data show that only 17.4% of these students spent 80% or more of their day in general education settings. In the 1992-93 school year, just 7.1% of students with intellectual disability met this benchmark (Wehmeyer, 2019). You could say that's an indicator of progress, but an increase of 10 percentage points over 30 years doesn't seem all that impressive.

I have now been involved in the special education enterprise for 40 years; IDEA and I grew up together. I believe that, as a field, we have much to be proud of: Many students have benefited from special education services, and, on the whole, we have contributed to the greater good. But we are nowhere near where we want to be, and our progress has been much too slow.

Special education (and education as a whole) continues to be plagued with the same systemic racism, ableism, and other discriminatory practices that exist in our society overall, as OSEP's annual reports to Congress regularly demonstrate. For instance, the risk ratio for Black children ages 6 to 21 to be categorized as having an emotional disorder or intellectual disability is twice that of white children (U.S. Department of Education, 2020). Further, student outcomes remain worrisome for too many students with disabilities. In 2019, the graduation rate for all students was 86% (U.S. Department of Education, 2021), but only 72% for all disabled students and 61% for students with emotional disturbance (U.S. Department of Education, 2020). The dropout rate for all students that year was 5.1%; for students with disabilities, it was 16%. Employment rates for people with developmental disabilities hover around 20%, and postsecondary enrollment for youth with disabilities is under 50% (Wehmeyer, 2019).

The history of our field is one of incremental progress: more for some students, less for others. But this incremental approach results every year in tens of thousands of children continuing to be left out and left behind. Our efforts fall short for every one of those children. As difficult as it may be to achieve significant educational change, we must push ourselves even harder to meet the standard defined by the Supreme Court in the Endrew case: to ensure that every child receives an education that is ambitious and challenging and embodies personalized supports, services, and instruction.

Should special education be special?

One way to achieve this is to reconsider how schools can better serve all students. Education reformers have long called for radical reforms of an antiquated education system that was created for a society that was still largely agrarian, at a time when low-skilled factory work was the fastest-growing part of the labor market. The world today is simply not the same world we knew in 1975, when EHA was passed, much less the world of the 1920s and '30s.

Today, public education's leading voices celebrate student autonomy and ownership, curiosity and motivation, creativity and entrepreneurship, active engagement with new ideas and inventions, and "deep learning" rather than a shallow understanding of basic facts and skills (Fullan, Quinn, & MacEachen, 2018). A world-class education, according to Yong Zhao (2012, 2018), incorporates student voice in school governance; student choice in a broad and flexible curriculum; and a strengths-based focus on students' unique talents, skills, and interests.

If this is what a world-class education looks like for all students, why should we expect anything less for students with disabilities?

The field of special education has long advocated for and pioneered many of the educational practices that the rest of K-12 education now views as cutting-edge. Over the last three decades, we've developed models of teaching and learning that focus on personalization, self-determination, and student engagement. We've thought deeply about how technology can contribute to student learning, and we've taken the lead in implementing Universal Design for Learning. We've long understood the value of formative assessment and relied on it to help us modify instruction. And over the last two decades, especially, we have begun to demonstrate what a strengths-based approach to education looks like and how it can benefit children.

If this is what a world-class education looks like for all students, why should we expect anything less for students with disabilities?

Still, nearly every reform initiative in our field - from mainstreaming to inclusion to multitiered systems of supports - has been criticized as an effort by special educators to foist their ideas and practices upon general education, without general educators' consent, knowledge, or input. A number of years ago, my colleague Wayne Sailor, writing in Kappan (Sailor & Roger, 2005), pointed out something that most of us seemed to have missed: By focusing primarily on the "inclusion" of students with disabilities in the general education classroom, we missed an important chance to build bridges. Rather than advocating for the rest of the school to adopt practices that meet the needs of the particular children we serve, we should have advocated for schoolwide applications that ensure that "previously specialized adaptations and strategies are used to enhance the learning of all students" (p. 503). That is, what we've advocated for students with disabilities should be what we advocate for students, period.

I believe that the current movement to promote personalized and flexible approaches to teaching and learning provides a rare opportunity to align practices between special education and general education. And the current upheaval within public education creates possibilities for change that are qualitatively different from any in recent memory.

My own vision for the future of education has been greatly influenced by the work of my colleague, Yong Zhao, particularly his 2018 book, Reach for Greatness: Personalizable Education for All Children. Our existing school system, Zhao argues, relies on two flawed assumptions: first, that "there is a set of skills and knowledge everyone must have in order to live a successful life in the world," and second, that "all children are capable of and interested in acquiring the skills and knowledge at a similar pace" (Zhao, 2018, p. 8). As a result, he adds, our school system "rarely cares about children's individual passions or talents" (p. 17) but instead focuses mainly on teaching the "skills" of being a good student: following rules, doing homework, getting good grades, and passing tests.

Our norm-referenced, standardized approach to education implies that not all children can be great (since, by definition, half will be judged to be below average) and that some talents and passions are less important than others. The alternative, Zhao proposes, is to recognize that every child has a unique profile (a "jagged profile," as he puts it) influenced by their particular experiences and opportunities and including many strengths and weaknesses. If each child is unique, then "there is no average . . . everyone can be said to be great in [their] own ways" (Zhao, 2018, p. 31). As he explains:

Today, in the new age, a majority of traditional routine tasks that required a homogenous set of skills and knowledge are now performed by machines, and human needs have shifted from basic needs to more psychological, aesthetic and intellectual needs. Thus, the full spectrum of human talents has become economically valuable. (p. 57)

If our current challenge is to build an educational system in which "all talents are worth developing and all passions are worth pursuing" (Wehmeyer, 2019, p. 30); in which we value all students' self-determination, agency, and ownership; and in which we seek to respond to every student's individual interests and needs, then we are building a system that requires the skills and knowledge that special educators possess. We have expertise in self-determined learning, as well as effective, validated models of professional development that help teachers promote student agency and self-determination. And we have vast experience in implementing practices that can be applied schoolwide to support all students, including students who've struggled in reading, math, science, and other content areas.

Toward personalization for all students

In short, I suspect we've outlived whatever utility there was to the term "special education." What we provide is specially designed and personalized instruction, which is what ought to count as high-quality instruction for every student, whatever their strengths or areas of instructional needs - whether they are identified as autistic or neurotypical, deaf or hearing, cognitively disabled or gifted.

No doubt, we will have to modify some of our practices to ensure that they are, indeed, applicable to all students, particularly if they were developed explicitly or exclusively for students with disabilities. For example, I think we will want to move from our familiar three-tiered systems of support to systems that recognize that all children have "jagged" profiles - stronger in some domains, weaker in others - requiring us to provide different kinds of instruction and support at different times.

In a recent Kappan article on gifted education, Dante Dixson and colleagues (2020) came to a similar conclusion, arguing that schools should take a much more flexible and personalized approach to determining if and when students need opportunities for advanced or accelerated learning:

We propose a model of gifted education that is proactive and locally focused on students' present needs in specific domains. [T]eachers and school staff must act as talent scouts, proactively identifying students who are underchallenged. That is, they should make it a priority to assess every student and then review the data to find those who are performing at a higher level than the material they are being taught. (p. 24)

It may sound unrealistic to expect our school systems to conduct the frequent, robust assessments of student's various talents and needs that would enable us to create an individualized instructional program for each learner. In recent years, however, colleagues in special education (Karvonen et al., 2020) have pioneered the use of technology-assisted assessments that provide precisely this sort of nuanced information. And while these tools were originally meant to drive an alternate assessment process for students with the most extensive support needs, the approach has already been shown to have considerable promise for use with all students.

EHA was, first and foremost, a civil rights act addressing discrimination against children with disabilities. We absolutely must continue to ensure that the rights of all children and their families to public education are guaranteed and protected. But we must also heed the Supreme Court and go beyond de minimis standards for disabled children, beyond low expectations and segregated settings, beyond incremental changes, beyond what "special education" has come to mean for too many students. We need to move beyond just talking about where some children are educated - specialized or general education settings - and focus on making sure that all children benefit from the instructional strategies that our field has developed over the years. We need to move beyond compliance and toward proactive efforts to promote equity and belonging for all students. We need to move beyond a focus on disorder and impairment and toward an appreciation for strengths, passions, and abilities. And we need to move beyond the confines of special education and toward a unified approach to K-12 education, in which the goal is not to provide separate services for different categories of children but to provide personalized supports that enable every student to, as Dixson and colleagues put it, "maximize" their talents.
References
Dixson, D.D., Peters, S.J., Makel, M.C., Jolly, J.L., Matthews, M.S., Miller, E.M., . . . & Wilson, H.E. (2020). A call to reframe gifted education as maximizing learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (4), 22-25.

Ferguson, P.M. (2014). Creating the continuum: J.E. Wallace Wallin and the role of clinical psychology in the emergence of public school special education in America. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 18 (1), 86-100.

Fullan, M., Quinn, J., & MacEachen, J. (2018). Deep learning: Engage the world, change the world. Corwin Press.

Karvonen, M., Kingston, N.M., Wehmeyer, M.L., & Thompson, W.J. (2020). New approaches to designing and administering inclusive assessments. In U. Sharma & S. Salend (Eds.), The Oxford encyclopedia of inclusive and special education. Oxford University Press.

Kode, K. (2017). Elizabeth Farrell and the history of special education (2nd ed.). Council for Exceptional Children.

Sailor, W. & Roger, B. (2005). Rethinking inclusion: Schoolwide applications. Phi Delta Kappan, 86 (7), 503-509.

Smith, J.D. & Wehmeyer, M.L. (2022). Good blood, bad blood: Science, nature, and the myth of the Kallikaks (2nd ed.). American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

U.S. Department of Education. (2020). 42nd annual report to Congress on the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Author.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2021). The Condition of Education 2021. Author.

Voulgarides, C.K. (2018). Does compliance matter in special education? IDEA and the hidden inequities of practice. Teachers College Press.

Voulgarides, C.K. (2022). The promises and pitfalls of mandating racial equity in special education. Phi Delta Kappan, 103 (6), 14-20.

Wehmeyer, M.L. (2019). Strength-based approaches to educating all learners with disabilities: Beyond special education. Teachers College Press.

Zhao, Y. (2012). World class learners: Educating creative and entrepreneurial students. Corwin.

Zhao, Y. (2018). Reach for greatness: Personalizable education for all children. Corwin.

This article appears in the March 2022 issue of Kappan, Vol. 103, No. 6, pp. 8-13.

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From segregation to strengths: A personal history of special education - kappanonline.org

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The current upheaval in public education creates possibilities to reimagine the role special educators can play in maximizing learning for all students. At the beginning of my career, I was among the first wave of special education teachers who entered the field after the passage of the 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA, which later became the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA).

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"Disability History: The Disability Rights Movement (U.S. National Park Service)

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"Disability History: The Disability Rights Movement (U.S. National Park Service)

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This article goes into depth with the Rehabilitations Act and the different sections within it. It also talks about multiple different supporters and founders of organizations, such as Ed Roberts and John Hessler.

It is important to know what is outlined in the different sections within the act and to recognize the importance of it. The act is still prevalent today, which is another reason I think it is important to be aware of what it entails.

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President George H.W. Bush signing the Americans with Disabilities Act. Photo inscribed to Justin Dart, Jr., 1990.
Image from the National Museum of American History (CC BY-SA 2.0; https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmuseumofamericanhistory/20825041956/)

Treatment and perceptions of disability have undergone transformation since the 1900s. This has happened largely because people with disabilities have demanded and created those changes. Like other civil rights movements, the disability rights movement has a long history. Examples of activism can be found among various disability groups dating back to the 1800s. Many events, laws, and people have shaped this development. To date, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the subsequent ADA Amendments Act (2008) are the movement's greatest legal achievements. The ADA is a major civil rights law that prohibits discrimination of people with disabilities in many aspects of public life. The disability rights movement continues to work hard for equal rights. lasted until April 28, when the regulations were finally signed, unchanged. This was, according to organizer Kitty Cone, the first time that "disability really was looked at as an issue of civil rights rather than an issue of charity and rehabilitation at best, pity at worst."

Organizations by and for people with disabilities have existed since the 1800s. However, they exploded in popularity in the 1900s. The League of the Physically Handicapped organized in the 1930s, fighting for employment during the Great Depression. In the 1940s a group of psychiatric patients came together to form We Are Not Alone.They supported patients in the transition from hospital to community. In 1950, several local groups came together and formed the National Association for Retarded Children (NARC). By 1960, NARC had tens of thousands of members, most of whom were parents. They were dedicated to finding alternative forms of care and education for their children.[3]Meanwhile, people with disabilities received assistance through the leadership of various presidents in the 1900s. President Truman formed the National Institute of Mental Health in 1948. Between the years 1960 and 1963, President Kennedy organized several planning committees to treat and research disability.[3]

The US Congress has passed many laws that support disability rights either directly or by recognizing and enforcing civil rights. Civil rights laws such as Brown v. Board of Education and its decision that school segregation is unconstitutional laid the groundwork for recognizing the rights of people with disabilities. Several sections of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which specifically address disability discrimination, are especially important to the disability rights movement. Section 501 supports people with disabilities in the federal workplace and in any organization receiving federal tax dollars. Section 503 requires affirmative action, which supports employment and education for members of traditionally disadvantaged minority groups. Section 504 prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in the workplace and in their programs and activities. Section 508 guarantees equal or comparable access to technological information and data for people with disabilities. The regulations for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 were written but not implemented. In 1977, the disability rights community was tired of waiting, and demanded that President Carter sign the regulations. Instead, a task force was appointed to review them. Afraid that the review would weaken the protections of the Act, the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities (ACCD) insisted they be enacted as written by 5 April 1977, or the coalition would take action. When the date arrived and the regulations remained unsigned, people across the country protested by sitting-in at federal offices of Health, Education, and Welfare (the agency responsible for the review). In San Francisco, the sit-in at the Federal Building[4]

The 1975 Education of All Handicapped Children Act guaranteed children with disabilities the right to public school education. These laws have occurred largely due to the concerted efforts of disability activists protesting for their rights and working with federal government. In all, the United States Congress passed more than 50 pieces of legislation between the 1960s and the passage of the ADA in 1990.

Self-advocacy groups have also shaped the national conversation around disability. Self-advocacy means representing one's own interests. Such groups include DREDF (Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund), ADAPT (Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, later changed to Americans Disabled Attendant Programs Today), and the CIL (Center for Independent Living). The CIL provides services for people with disabilities in the community. The CIL began in the early 1960s at Cowell Memorial Hospital. Located in California, Cowell Memorial Hospital was once listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building is now demolished, but its legacy remains. The hospital supported the "Rolling Quads" and the "Disabled Students Program" at University of California Berkeley. Students Ed Roberts and John Hessler founded both organizations. Both men lived with physical disabilities and needed to find housing options after their acceptance to the university. University dormitories could not manage Roberts' iron lung, an assistive breathing device for people with polio, or Hessler's physical needs. Hessler and Roberts instead lived at Cowell Memorial Hospital when they arrived at college in the early 1960s. With the assistance of College of San Mateo counselor Jean Wirth, they demanded access to the school and encouraged other students with physical disabilities to attend UC Berkeley. They also influenced school architecture and planning. UC Berkeley eventually created housing accommodations for these students. It was there that the students planted the seed of the independent living movement. The independent living movement supports the idea that people with disabilities can make their own decisions about living, working, and interacting with the surrounding community. This movement is a reaction to centuries of assisted living, psychiatric hospitals, and doctors and parents who had made decisions for individuals with disabilities.

Roberts, Hessler, Wirth and others established the Disabled Students Program at UC Berkeley. Although this was not the first program of its kind-- Illinois offered similar services beginning in the 1940s-- the UC Berkeley Program was groundbreaking. They promoted inclusion for all kinds of students on campus. The program inspired universities across the country to create similar organizations. Many of these organizations are still active today.

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Disability History: The Disability Rights Movement (U.S. National Park Service)

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Treatment and perceptions of disability have undergone transformation since the 1900s. This has happened largely because people with disabilities have demanded and created those changes. Like other civil rights movements, the disability rights movement has a long history. Examples of activism can be found among various disability groups dating back to the 1800s.

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"The American Education System and The Treatment of Disabilities in America: A History"

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"The American Education System and The Treatment of Disabilities in America: A History"

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This article does not just talk about the struggles with educating those with disabilities, but it also touches on child labor laws, white supremacy, and how education is powerful in society. They also talk about the horrors of in-state care facilities and how mistreatment was common in those facilities.

I think that educating yourself on multiple topics is a good idea, especially when trying to compare it to other bad examples of how not to treat others when it comes to education and learning. It is also good to know the impact of education and how important it is, which again, is very important information for today's world.

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Even though 1 in 6 people around the world experience disabilities, they are often among the forgotten groups within our society. While people with disabilities today are living under better conditions than their ancestors, there is still a lot of progress needed to be had to ensure that people with disabilities can lead a life of dignity and independence, free from the stigma and failures of society's ableist mindset. In this two-part blog, we will focus specifically on children with disabilities within the American education system, but before that, it is necessary to frame the historical context surrounding the American education system, and how disability in America has been treated as a whole. As a result, part one of this series will focus on setting the historical context, exploring the American Education System as well as the treatment of people with disabilities throughout American history. The second part of this series will focus on exploring the contemporary issues faced by children with disabilities and their families within the American Education System and learn about a human rights framework for disability rights.

History of America's Education System

The Unequal Distribution of Knowledge

Since the founding of this country is rooted in capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy, many groups of people have been historically denied access to education. Traditionally, children from poor backgrounds were expected to help their families on the farm or work in their family businesses to make ends meet. As the industrial revolution took hold, child labor transferred from the farms to the factories, and many industries, such as the textile industry preferred to employ children to exploit their minuscule features. The petite features of the children came into use when they were needed to get into tight spots, or when operating machinery that required smaller extremities. Child labor in America was not outlawed until 1938, meaning that many children from poor families were illiterate and disadvantaged in comparison with children from wealthier families, who could afford to educate their children instead.

In addition to the absence of child labor laws, the patriarchal structure of American society deemed it more important for boys and men to be educated than their female counterparts. While poor families were denied access to education on the whole, even among wealthier families, the education of boys was prioritized over educating women. Women were expected to be homemakers and child-bearers in the private sphere, and the public sphere was reserved for their male counterparts. Many women were denied access to education, were not permitted to participate in politics and were limited to feminine jobs (such as teaching, nursing, and domestic work) when they did participate economically in the larger society. It was not until the 19th century that women were given more flexibility in their pursuit of higher education. Of course, not all women shared the same experiences, and white women were better able to receive education than women from other races, and as expressed earlier, wealthier women had more opportunities to educate themselves than did women living in poverty.

Furthermore, the foundations of white supremacy upon which America was built denied people of color access to education. Education provides the key to empowerment, and the status quo did not want to empower those they deemed to be inferior. Due to the hierarchical nature of this supremacist mindset, people from different groups were "dealt with" in different manners. For immigrants, access to education depended on their country of origin. Some immigrants, such as those from Asian countries, were barred from receiving education in America until the 1880s and were instead used for hard labor, like constructing railroads. European immigrants, on the other hand, were well-received by many in America, (with the exception of the Irish), and were granted many of the rights shared by American citizens at the time. There was however, a difference in treatment between the Old immigrants, (which were members from wealthier backgrounds with skills and education levels from the Southern and Eastern parts of Europe that came to America in the early 1800s), and the New immigrants (who were mostly impoverished, unskilled laborers from Western and Northern Europe who migrated to America in the late 1800s).

In addition to immigrants, the indigenous population of America also received access to education with a different approach. In an attempt to force them to forget their rich cultural histories and erase the cultural differences between the indigenous population and the larger (White) American society, children from different tribes were kidnapped and forced into boarding schools where they would learn to be assimilated into the American culture. Indigenous children were punished for speaking their language, engaging in their cultural practices, or even wearing cultural clothing (whether it was casually or for cultural practices). This is one of the reasons that today when people appropriate Native American culture (and attire), it can be very insulting, as they were punished for practicing their culture and wearing their traditional clothing.

Furthermore, during the enslavement of African Americans, who were deemed to be on the lowest level on this racial hierarchy, access to literacy was denied to them and outlawed, making it punishable by law for African Americans to be literate. This law was another way in which racist leaders of the time maintained control over the enslaved population. Following this period, there were many racist laws and social barriers to education for African Americans over time, and it was not until the famous passage of the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that African Americans were given the right to equal education. With all that being said, there is still an ongoing struggle to bring equity, inclusion, and diversity into the American education system.

There can be a whole blog dedicated to the housing market, its impacts on funding for the local schools, and how this influences the level of education the children within those districts experience. As mentioned in previous blogs on similar topics, this funding practice tied to the housing market is, yet another way racism has seeped into American institutions. Transforming the American Education system into a more inclusive one will be a difficult fight ahead, as cries against teachings with an anti-racist approach are molding the current curriculum within the education system today.

The Historical Struggle to Secure the Right to Education for People with Disabilities

This exclusive approach to education also historically denied access to disabled individuals as well. American society has been structured with an ableist mindset, and people with disabilities have been stigmatized and marginalized by the larger society. In the past, many states prevented children with disabilities from attending school, choosing to place them in state institutions instead. Some wealthier families with disabled children could afford to home-school them, but the rest of the children with disabilities within society were not given that opportunity.

Even after education was required for all children, many states refused to provide accommodations for their students with disabilities, and the responsibility of securing access and mobility was placed on the children and their families, rather than the state. Judith Heumann, a well-known disability rights activist, was denied entry to her elementary school during the 1950s because the school district deemed her a "fire hazard" for being mobility impaired and having to use a wheelchair. It was not until the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHC; later known as the Individuals with Disabilities Act or IDEA) in 1975 that educational rights were protected for groups in need, including children with disabilities. While education access was protected under this law, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 was needed to ensure that people with disabilities are protected from discrimination in all aspects of society.

The Horrific History of Disability in America

How were People with Disabilities Viewed in the Past, and how has that changed today?

Understanding the historical context behind the American education system is only one part of this conversation. Outlining the lens through which disability is viewed today, and in the past, is necessary to comprehend the treatment of children with disabilities within the American education system. Today, people with disabilities are viewed in four ways. For one, following the traditional views of disability, most people with disabilities are simply ignored by society, both as a population, as well as systemically. You can see this is the case by simply looking at some of the ableist framings of our infrastructure. Needless to say, being an invisible group within society comes with its own challenges.

Another common way society approaches people with disabilities is to view them as the "super-crip" (which is extremely insulting) and look at their achievements as "inspirational." People who believe this highlight people with disabilities in a supernatural sense, similar to how many African Americans were portrayed as supernatural beings with superhuman strength and abilities. This troupe was not helpful to the African American community then, and it is not helpful to people with disabilities today. Some may argue that this troupe seems to be a positive outlook of the group, but upon closer inspection, it is important to recognize the stress and burden of success this places on people with disabilities to feel accepted by society. It also encourages the mindset that these people who achieve extraordinary things are superhuman and that their achievements are highlighted because there is a general conception that this is abnormal for the group. Additionally, for a person with disabilities, it can be insulting and demeaning to hear the phrase, "if a person with a disability can achieve this, so can you!"

Another tactless way in which people with disabilities are regarded, as inferior to the rest of the population. Many able-bodied individuals either view them as a burden to society or simply objects to be pitied. This can have the impact of treating people with disabilities as second-class citizens and making them feel as if they are lacking in some way or another. Those who show pity toward people with disabilities may have good intentions, but their actions treat people with disabilities as victims of fate, rather than with dignity and humanity.

Finally, some people within society treat people with disabilities as if they have undergone a tragic event (whatever led to their disability), and people require "saving" or "treatment" to be "cured" of their ailments. This too is not the case. People with disabilities adapt to living their lives with their disabilities, and they don't require anyone to "save" them from their disabilities. This is extremely insulting and rude to even think that, and it has the same connotations as would a "white-savior complex" within the context of race. The underlying belief in both of these situations is that the person doing the "saving" believes that the person that needs to be "saved" cannot do this for themselves and that they require the help of the "savior".

While it is important to understand the contemporary views of people with disabilities, it is equally relevant to familiarize ourselves with the ways in which people with disabilities have been treated in America in the past. Until the 19 th century, people with disabilities were separated from participating with the rest of the larger society. During colonial times in America, people with disabilities were treated in a similar light as the Salem witches, either burned or hanged. Others viewed disability as a sign of God's disapproval of the colonists, and people with disabilities were treated as though they were possessed. Still, others felt that people with disabilities were a disgrace to their family and their community, and many were shunned from their homes. The larger society lumped criminals, poor people, mentally ill people, and people with disabilities under the same roof, labeling them as outsiders. This practice evolved into the many horror stories that we may be familiar with today regarding asylums and their treatment of their patients. An important note: as it is with other American institutions, racism, and sexism disproportionately impact the lives of people of color and women within these institutions, and this translates into how they are perceived and treated by the larger society as well. This remains true for people with disabilities with identities that are not aligned with the patriarchal, white society.

The mistreatment and abuse of people with disabilities within asylums

People with disabilities, along with other vulnerable groups that were stigmatized by society, were pushed into asylums. These were large "hospitals" stocked with medical equipment and personnel in which the goal was to provide care and treatment for the patients that resided within these asylums. The reason I placed hospitals in quotations is that many of these asylums were simply places to house all the people society did not want. These patients were experimented on, abused, neglected, and had almost no rights to defend themselves. Some patients that were from wealthy families were able to be treated at home, but others that came from meager backgrounds were not as fortunate. Many of the staff working within these institutions were unsympathetic towards their patients, feeling burdened by their very existence. Many people (within the institution and outside in the larger society) believed that people with mental illness and people with disabilities were "acting out" on purpose, to make life harder for those "upstanding" citizens of society. Many of the patients were misdiagnosed, and the institutions went from trying to care for the patients to "cure" the patients of their disabilities. The stigmatization of these groups within the asylums meant that their needs and wants were ignored. In addition to that, because it did not require a professional recommendation from a medical practitioner to admit patients into the asylums, many people were wrongly admitted to these institutions (because of personal grudges or disapproval of their behavior) for years without the right to defend and protect themselves.

Of course, it is not wise to lump every institution together and generalize about their treatment of their patients. While some were genuinely trying to take care of their wards and research ways to help "cure" them, others were less sympathetic to the plights of people with disabilities, both visible and invisible. For one, similar to the issues that American prisons face today, asylums were overcrowded, understaffed, and underfunded. This meant that each individual residing within the institutions was not given the personal care they required, and instead, they were all lumped into groups to receive generalized treatments. This was problematic in so many ways, but the most obvious is that disability takes many shapes and forms, and each individual had different needs that had to be met. Approaching a group of people with disabilities with generalized treatments meant that the doctors and nurses never took time to understand the details of each person's disability, much less how best to approach them. As a matter of fact, because many believed disabilities to be a spiritual problem (a person being possessed by the devil), early "treatments" for mental illnesses and disabilities came in the form of exorcisms. When medical professionals finally were able to understand that this was a bodily illness, not a spiritual one, they then proceeded to conduct various experiments on the patients without having any knowledge of how to treat their patients. This is where the tortures began.

Medical personnel proposed many treatments to "cure" people with disabilities, including inhumane procedures that involved drilling holes into the patient's skull in an attempt to bleed out the disease in question. While it is easy to judge in retrospect, in the beginning, many of the doctors truly believed that they were "curing" their patients with the various treatments they provided them, even as many recognized the inhumane nature of their treatments.

Other various treatments were administered to the patients, which can be defined as abusive and torturous today. Many women with disabilities were abused sexually, both by other patients and their caregivers. In addition to these incidents, many states (through the support of the law) practiced forced sterilization of disabled individuals in these institutions. The justification for this practice was expressed as cleansing humanity of these various illnesses and disabilities. Inspired by the American practice of eugenics, Nazi Germany expanded upon this practice to include everyone that did not fit their description of the "Aryan" race. To this day, America has not acknowledged this practice, and forced sterilization continues to be legal in the United States because of a Supreme Court ruling in 1927. The case in question, maintained that the sterilization of Carrie Buck (a woman who was raped and accused of "feeblemindedness") was not in violation of the Constitution. This ruling permitted the forced sterilization of thousands of people with disabilities and other traits deemed "unwanted" by the general public. While the Supreme Court has outlawed forced sterilization as a form of punishment, it has never overturned its ruling made in Buck v. Bell. As a result, this practice is technically still supported within the legal framework.

With very little funding, the living conditions within the institutions also proved to be dangerous. The asylum itself was built to be uncomfortable because there was a belief that comfortable living would encourage patients to stay there forever. This meant that there was poor insulation, keeping the buildings cold. Due to the shortage of staff, many patients were restrained or locked up, while others were neglected altogether. These conditions, along with the "treatments" they received, exacerbated the patients' conditions and were detrimental to their mental and physical health. Finally, as a result of society's exclusion of this vulnerable population, many people outside of the institutions were not aware of what was taking place within. The patients inside these asylums were all but forgotten, invisible to the rest of society.

Deinstitutionalization

In an attempt to expose these terrible conditions to the larger society, journalists and activists spread accounts about the conditions within the asylums. Many were able to do this by investigating these institutions firsthand, and images (and videos) of the ill-treatment of the patients began circulating. As people started learning about the horrific conditions in which their loved ones were being kept in, the asylums faced a lot of backlashes. Amid all the backlash, in 1946, President Truman passed the National Mental Health Act to begin research on neurological issues. It would not be until 1955, however, that things changed drastically for those suffering from mental illnesses. Thorazine, a psychoactive medication that was introduced as a way to treat mental illness, and the population within the institutions peaked around this time. In the 1960s, there was an attempt to take a community-based approach to treat mental health, but it lacked the funding to progress in any substantial way. In 1981, Ronald Reagan takes a drastic step to stop government funding to help with mental health, forcing institutions to close their doors and leaving the patients on the streets.

This dramatic change provided no cushion for the patients to fall on, and much experienced homelessness as a result. With nowhere to go and no help from the government, many people with disabilities lost their lives because of this policy shift. These individuals never received any compensation for their ill-treatment, nor were they given any transitional housing or aid to help restart their lives. Of those that did not end up dead, many people with disabilities were imprisoned for causing "public disturbances." Unfortunately, this practice continues to exist today, especially impacting people of color, and people living in poverty disproportionately. Of course, the imprisonment of people suffering from physical and mental disabilities exacerbated their conditions, and the lack of care and treatment resulted in many deaths. With nowhere to go, and no rights to protect this vulnerable population, people with disabilities continued to suffer due to systemic failures.

The movement for disability rights

Eventually, following the lead set by the Civil Rights Movement and many other movements such as the Women's Rights movement, and the sexual revolution that fought for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities came together to stand against discrimination toward them from the larger society, and fight for their rights to exist and prosper like any other groups. People with disabilities wanted to challenge the practice of institutionalization and employed many of the tactics that were used during the Civil Rights Movement. They staged sit-ins in governmental buildings like the FBI building, challenged the mobility norms of society by blocking busses (that denied accessibility to people with disabilities) from moving, and they protested on the streets, able-bodied allies and people with disabilities alike, fighting for their rights.

People with disabilities were also exhausted with the ableist society they lived in and began to challenge the many barriers within society that kept them from living as independent individuals. They did not need someone to hold the doors for them; they wanted the doors to remain open automatically long enough for them to pass through. They wanted accessible sidewalks on which they could move their wheelchairs, walkers, and other walking devices (if applied) safely, and independently, without having to depend on others to take care of them. People with disabilities and their caregivers began to challenge the largely held view by society that people with disabilities were a burden to society. They argued that societal barriers made them dependent on others and implementing disability-friendly solutions can provide the community with the independence to live their lives freely.

In 1973, with the passage of the Rehabilitation Act, specifically, Section 504, people with disabilities, for the first time, were protected by law from being discriminated against. This act recognized that the many issues faced by people with disabilities, such as unemployment, transportation, and accessibility issues, were not the fault of the person with the disability, but rather, a result of society's shortcomings in failing to provide accessible services to the group. While this was a major win for this community, this law only applied to those who accepted federal funding, meaning that the private sector, and even many of the public sector, could still discriminate against people with disabilities. Following the passage of this act, many people with disabilities were instrumental in ensuring its enforcement. Many of the sit-ins referred to above happened at this time, as an attempt to keep governmental offices accountable. Protestors would block the entrances into the government buildings, or stay in the buildings past close time, refusing to leave until the necessary changes were agreed to be made to the buildings (such as including ramps to the building or elevators inside the buildings) to meet the Section 504 requirements. This continued until Ronald Reagan issued a task force to stop the regulatory attempts made by supporters of Section 504, and the protections secured by the IDEA, an act that protected the educational rights of children with disabilities. Over the following years, his decision resulted in hundreds of frustrated parents and people with disabilities alike questioning the justification for stopping the regulatory actions of Section 504. This backlash, accompanied by the tireless leaders of the community meeting with White House officials, ended in Reagan reversing his crackdown on Section 504, allowing regulations to continue on businesses that refused to incorporate practices outlined in Section 504.

Additionally, following the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, people with disabilities, along with other protected groups such as race, gender (and sex), and religion, were protected from discrimination in housing. The first passage of the act initially only included race, religion, national origin, and color, as the protected groups. It was not until 1974 when sex (and gender) were added to this list, and not until 1988 when the disability community was added. Still, this act was especially important for people with disabilities because it required home builders to provide reasonable accommodations necessary for the inhabitants to live comfortably and move around the housing unit.

Following these many small victories came the biggest one of them all, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 (ADA). This law was the first general law protecting people with disabilities from discrimination in all aspects of society, including in housing, employment, healthcare, transportation, and many other social services that impacted the lives of this protected group. The passage of the ADA focused on four main themes: full participation, equal opportunity, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. Full participation focuses on the ability of people with disabilities to participate in all aspects of their lives, including having access to transportation, entering and exit buildings without issues, being able to vote on inaccessible sites, and enjoying life without social barriers that prevent them from being able to do so. Equal opportunity centers on being able to be employed without facing discrimination due to their disability and being able to take advantage of other such opportunities free of discrimination. Independent living brings attention to the ableist framework that society is structured in and recognizes the need for a more disability-friendly society, with access to handrails, ramps, curb cuts, and other options such as disability-friendly online sites (that for example, speak the menu out for you if you are a person with visual imparities) to raise the living standards for people with disabilities. The basis of this pillar is to empower people with disabilities with tools they can use for themselves in order to live independent life. Finally, the economic self-sufficiency piece mainly concentrates on the economic security of people with disabilities. This includes access and accommodations to receive higher education, better employment opportunities (including training, transportation access, and mobility within the workspace), and other such necessities to promote economic self-sufficiency within the disability community.

Many communities across the United States are brainstorming innovative ways to be more inclusive, but we are far from being a fully inclusive society. People with disabilities remain among the invisible groups within society, not because their advocates are not loud enough, but because their cries are being ignored by lawmakers and their local representatives. Globally, the United Nations established the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities(CRPD) in 2006, working to shift the mindset of people's views on disability as a whole, as well as protect and promote the rights of individuals with disabilities by empowering them to fully participate in society with the dignity and humanity they deserve.

While this blog mainly focused on the historical context of the American Education System and the perception of people with disabilities in the past and today, the next blog will focus more on the treatment of children with disabilities within the American education system today, the many challenges they continue to face, how the pandemic has impacted their learning and development, and the human rights framework necessary for disability rights to do what we can to be more inclusive and less ableist as a society.

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The American Education System and The Treatment of Disabilities in America: A History

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Even though 1 in 6 people around the world experience disabilities, they are often among the forgotten groups within our society. While people with disabilities today are living under better conditions than their ancestors, there is still a lot of progress needed to be had to ensure that people with disabilities can lead a life of dignity and independence, free from the stigma and failures of society's ableist mindset.

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This article is dedicated to the horrors and inhuman actions taken at Willowbrook State Institution. It has pictures and examples of torture. It also explains how it continued on for so long due to the parents not being aware of what was actually happening. Once word got out and pictures were shared, the nation got involved and Willowbrook was sued. It had taken years, and Senator Robert Kennedy had even described the conditions within as a "snakepit" due to the overcrowding and disgusting environment.

Willowbrook is absolutely something every aspiring teacher should read up on and have a good amount of knowledge for. It is so important to note mistakes in history and to acknowledge them, knowing it should never happen again and everyone will try to never make it repeat. It is an exceptional learning opportunity and one that needs to be known.

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These changes were revolutionary. They can be linked to the placement of people with developmental disabilities in community residences, the growth of voluntary agencies, the expansion of special education and day programs, and the training of direct-care workers, therapists, teachers, and administrators.
Cover page for the class-action lawsuit that led to the Consent Judgement in 1975, listing the plaintiffs, made up of advocacy organizations and individual residents with their guardians.
Plaintiffs:
New York Association for Retarded Children, Inc.;
Benevolent Society for Retarded Children, Willowbrook Chapter, of the New York State Association for Retarded Children;
Lara R. Schneps, by her father Murray B. Schneps;
Nina Galin, by her mother Diana Lane McCourt;
Anthony Rios, by his father, Jesus Rios;
David Amoroso, by his mother Rosalie Amoroso;
Rose Evelyn Cruz, by her father Francisco M. Cruz;
Barry Friedman, by his father Melvin Friedman;
Lowell Scott Isaacs, by his father Jerome M. Isaacs;
Antoinette Magri, by her mother Sandra Magri.
Defendants:
Nelson Rockefeller;
Alan D. Miller, M.D.;
Roderic Grunberg, M.D.;
Robert E. Patton;
Charles Schleifer;
Jack Hammond, M.D.;
Robert W. Hayes;
Bertram Pepper, M.D.;
A. Anthony Arce, M.D.;
James M. Murphy, M.D.;
Manny Sternlicht;
Milton Jacobs, M.D.

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These changes were revolutionary. They can be linked to the placement of people with developmental disabilities in community residences, the growth of voluntary agencies, the expansion of special education and day programs, and the training of direct-care workers, therapists, teachers, and administrators.