The Impacts of IDEA 1

The Impacts of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act

Tayler Logue

Dakota State University

The Impacts of IDEA 2

Abstract

Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975. The Act went under

revision in 1990, and the name changed to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Its

last revision in 2004, added more to the name making it the Individuals with Disabilities

Education Improvement Act. More commonly known as IDEA, this act changed the way people

viewed special education. The six principles of IDEA impact schools, teachers, and students with

disabilities every day. Zero reject requires schools to educate all students no matter the disability;

nondiscriminatory evaluation requires nonbiased, multifactored evaluations in the students native

language; free appropriate public education requires all students receive an appropriate education

as specified in their individual education plan; least restrictive environment requires the school to

educate students in the general education classroom as long as it remains appropriate for their

learning; procedural safeguards require protection for all students with disabilities and parents;

parent participation and shared decision making requires schools to include parents in any

decisions about their child. Teachers treat students with disabilities as equals to their classmates

without disabilities. In the general education classroom, teachers find ways to educate both

students with and without disabilities without excluding either from the lessons or activities.

Since the passing of IDEA, the lives of students with disabilities have greatly improved.
The Impacts of IDEA 3

The Impacts of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act

In a not distant past, children with disabilities lived with segregation and discrimination

daily. Separated from their peers and thought of as ineducable, these children did not have equal

opportunities. In 1975, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, and

renamed it the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) in 2004.

Congress wrote the law to make sure individuals with disabilities existed as equals in society.

Once IDEA took effect, the roles and responsibilities of the education system, educators, and the

lives of individuals with disabilities changed.

Children with disabilities have not always stood as equals in the eyes of the school and

state. Before IDEA, schools did not provide special education students with the tools the students

needed to succeed. No law stated that schools had to provide for children with disabilities; some

schools did not allow students to attend because of their disability. Before the 1970s, several

states wrote laws allowing the schools to discriminate against these students (Heward, 2013).

One law permitted schools to refuse services to children physically or mentally incapacitated

for school work; another state law allowed turning away children if they have bodily or mental

conditions rendering attendance inadvisable (Heward, 2013, p. 14). Although schools started to

accept some responsibility for educating children with disabilities by the 1960s, the children

remained segregated from the general education classroom and attended class in improper

conditions (Heward, 2013).

Special education teachers taught their students in crude facilities. Others treated the

teachers and students in special education as inferior. One special education teacher remembers

teaching in the basement room next to the furnace; she remained isolated from her colleagues,

and the children remained isolated from their peers (Heward, 2013). The school assigned the
The Impacts of IDEA 4

class a separate spot on the playground for recess, in efforts to keep them apart from the other

kids which society deemed normal (Heward, 2013). Parents and other advocates started to call

into question the conditions and situations students in special education dealt with after major

court case decisions.

The lawsuit Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, based on challenging racial

segregation in schools, raised questions of the treatment of children with disabilities in school

after the Supreme Court ruled that schools must provide education to all children on equal terms:

Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.

Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditure for education both

democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic responsibilities.

In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if

he is denied the opportunity of an education. (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954)

Parents of children with disabilities questioned why their children did not receive equal treatment

if all schools must educate all students equally, and how the government expects their child to

succeed if they deny education to him or her. During the 1960s and 1970s, many parents and

advocates brought several court cases. Another major court case in 1972, Pennsylvania

Association for Retarded Children (PARC) v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, challenged the

state law that denied education to children with disabilities. Because the state could not prove

ineducability or the need to exclude students with a disability, the court ruled the students had

the right to receive a free, public education, and the educators must inform the parents before

they can make any changes to the students educational program (Heward, 2013). Brown v.

Board of Education stood as the foundation for IDEA along with influences from PARC.
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IDEA has six major principles: zero reject; nondiscriminatory evaluation; free

appropriate public education; least restrictive environment; procedural safeguards; parent

participation and shared decision making. The federal government created the principles to

benefit the students in need of special education services. In 2012, IDEA serviced a total of

5,699,640 students ages 6 through 21 in the United States which represented 8.4 percent of the

population that age (Department of Education, 2014). IDEAs six principles all support the

purposes of IDEA which state:

1. (A) to ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate

public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet

their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment, and independent

living; (B) to ensure that the rights of children with disabilities and parents of such

children are protected; and (C) to assist States, localities, educational service agencies,

and Federal agencies to provide for the education of all children with disabilities;

2. to assist States in the implementation of a statewide, comprehensive, coordinated,

multidisciplinary, interagency system of early intervention services for infants and

toddlers with disabilities and their families;

3. to ensure that educators and parents have the necessary tools to improve educational

results for children with disabilities by supporting system improvement activates;

coordinated research and personnel preparation; coordinated technical assistance,

dissemination, and support; and technology development and media services; and

4. to assess, and ensure he effectiveness of, efforts to educate children with disabilities. (as

cited in Heward, 2013)

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Many guidelines and policies for special education and IDEA fall under the six principles

centered around IDEAs purposes. These principles focus on students rights and the

responsibilities of the school to the children with disabilities.

With Zero Reject, public schools cannot exclude anyone who has a disability no matter

the severity of the disability, and the schools must find a way to educate all students. Schools

now have an obligation to educate all students with disabilities. Discrimination of students who

need special education services will no longer legally occur, so all students with or without

disabilities will receive a free, appropriate education. Zero Reject requires schools to provide

special education services to students ages six through seventeen; however, if the school

provides educational services to children without disabilities, ages three through five or ages

eighteen through twenty-one, then the schools must also provide education to children with

disabilities in that age range (Heward, 2013). To fulfill the requirement of educating all students

with disabilities, the school has the responsibility of hiring qualified teachers for special

education. Teachers must have the ability to find new, innovative ways and methods to teach

their students especially when each child in their class will not have the same disability; teachers

cannot use the same teaching method for every student because every student learns and

processes information differently.

Zero Reject also includes the child find system. Each school district must locate, identify,

and evaluate all students with disabilities or students suspected of having disabilities from birth

to twenty-one. If states or schools choose to ignore parts of IDEA, that action opens them to

lawsuits. In 2011, parents experienced difficulties in attaining appropriate special education

services for seven young children with disabilities, so they brought a lawsuit against the District
The Impacts of IDEA 7

of Columbia (Wrights, 2011). A federal judge made a ruling in D.L. v. District of Columbia

siding with the parents and wrote,

The Court finds that these violations result in irreparable injury to all eligible children

between the ages of three and five years old, inclusive whom defendants did not

identify, locate, evaluate, or offer special education and related services. Without access

to these special education and related services, preschool-age children in the District of

Columbia suffer substantial harm by being denied vital educational opportunities that are

essential to their development. (as quoted in Wrights, 2011)

The federal government wrote the mandates of IDEA to try and help all students with

disabilities. States and schools cannot ignore these without harming children or denying them

their rights.

Nondiscriminatory Evaluation consists of schools evaluating each student with or

suspected of having a disability fairly and without bias to determine whether a child has a

disability. Since the evaluations must not discriminate on the basis of race, culture, or native

language, assessments include multifactored methods of evaluation in the childs native language

(Heward, 2013). Schools cannot identify or place students in special education based on the

results of a single test score; different professionals observe students in the classroom, ask

parents questions, and review students work samples to use as evidence of the childs disability.

If a student does qualify, the school must plan what kind of education would appropriately serve

the student. In 2003, questions on what defined a disability according to IDEA remained heavily

debated by policymakers; objections to congressional decisions to recognize the categories of

autism, traumatic brain injury, and attention deficit/hyperactivity happened during that time

(Turnbull, 2003). Increasing numbers of students with specific learning disabilities or

The Impacts of IDEA 8

emotional/behavioral disorders generated controversy. Some believed students with a learning

disability did not actually have one, and the test results stemmed from poor education in early

years. This doubt could come from the disproportionate numbers of minorities in special

education.

Minority populations remain overrepresented in special education. Educators must

determine if a disability exists. Some students switch schools multiple times a year if their

parents move to follow work. The frequent moving can harm the childs education. Once the

child arrives at a new school, the teacher may notice he or she shows signs of a learning

disability; however, the educators must determine the reason for the child falling behind. If it

does not stem from a disability, but frequent moving, educators cannot offer the student special

education services. To help determine if the child has a disability, more schools use prereferral

intervention; even though, IDEA does not require it. Prereferral intervention can aid in

instruction and behavior management for the student and teacher as well as reduce the chance of

misidentifying a student for special education who does not have a disability (Heward, 2013).

Teachers have become involved in response to intervention (RTI), a form of prereferral

intervention, that according to Fuchs and Hollenbeck (2007) shows, If children respond poorly

to validated instruction, the assessment eliminates instructional quality as a viable explanation

for poor academic growth and instead provides evidence of a disability. For children who do

respond nicely, RTI serves a critical prevention function (as cited in Heward, 2013, p. 48). If

the teachers decide the child has a disability, the child takes a nondiscriminatory evaluation to

prove he or she has one. The evaluation will help ensure the child receives an appropriate

education.
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Another principle of IDEA requires all students with disabilities receive a free

appropriate public education (FAPE) at public expense meaning the parents should not have to

pay for any of the education. FAPE extends past zero reject; it determines whether students

receive an education that leads to their full participation in American life, that improves their

economic capabilities and their ability to live as independently as they want to live (Turnbull,

2003, p. 35). Educators must create and implement an Individualized Education Program (IEP)

for all children with disabilities. IDEA requires an IEP team to create the IEP. The team consists

of the parents, the regular classroom teacher, the special education teacher, an individual who

can interpret the IEP, and the child with the disability. Students participating in or leading their

own meeting allows them to become more involved in their education. According to Barnard-

Brak and Lechtenberger (2010), Some research suggests a positive correlation between

students participation in the IEP process and academic achievement (as cited in Heward, 2013,

p. 66). An IEP consists of

present levels of academic achievement and functional performance; a statement of

measurable annual goals; a description of how the childs progress toward meeting the

annual goals will be measured; a statement of the special education and related services

and supplementary aids and services; an explanation of the extent, if any, to which the

child will not participate with nondisabled children in the regular class and in activities; a

statement of any individual appropriate accommodations that are necessary to measure

the academic achievement and functional performance of the child on assessments; and

the projected date for the beginning of services and modifications and the frequency,

location, and duration of those services and modifications. (as cited in Heward, 2013, p.

61)
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The general education teacher and special education teacher need to know what each students

IEP states, and they must have the teaching ability to help each student towards his or her goals.

After IDEA passed, knowing what the students IEP states and how to meet his or her

goals comprises of a vital part of a teachers job. The IEP stands as a measure of accountability.

Proof of students progress towards meeting their goals remains an essential part of proving the

teachers and the school continue to remain effective. Teachers that do not follow the IEP open

themselves to lawsuits and corrective discipline. The team writes the IEP to benefit the student

with disabilities. Not following the IEP denies the child his or her right to an appropriate

education.

Educators must place students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment (LRE).

To the greatest, appropriate extent possible, the students should participate in the general

education classroom with their peers. If the students disability hinders him or her from receiving

an appropriate education with supplementary aids and services, then IDEA stipulates that the

school will offer an array of alternative placements and services (Heward, 2013). The disability

category cannot determine the LRE; the IEP team will determine each students LRE. This

principle encourages integrated classrooms comprised of both students who have a disability and

those who do not. Once students with disabilities participate in the general education class, it

provides them with the opportunity to interact with nondisabled students. In turn, the

nondisabled students learn those with disabilities stand equally worthy as individuals (Turnbull,

2003).

Including children with disabilities in the general education classroom requires teachers

to have the ability to teach and help all students. General education teachers must not

underestimate children with disabilities. Moving fast through curriculum benefits the student
The Impacts of IDEA 11

with disabilities after he or she has learned the skill. Some teachers have implemented content

enhancements like mnemonics, graphic organizers, and notetaking strategies which can help all

students, specifically students with a disability, learn the content (Heward, 2013). Teaching

knowledge or skills directly can also help students with disabilities; teachers show students what

to do and allow the students numerous opportunities to practice with them (Heward, 2013).

Children have the right to learn and the right to remain protected under the law.

Procedural safeguards protect the rights of the children with disabilities and the parents.

Parents must consent to have their child tested for special education before the testing occurs;

illegal evaluation occurs if educators test the child before parents give consent. Educators need to

notify parents of any changes to their childs IEP. They have more responsibility with keeping

the parents included in their childs learning. Parents have the right to participate in the decision-

making process and protest any decisions they do not see fit for their child in response to

identification, evaluation, placement, or provision of a FAPE and related services (Turnbull,

2003; Heward, 2013). If parents and schools do not agree, a due process hearing stands as a way

for parents to seek government intervention. Although, most parents settle conflicts without a

due process hearing. Zirkel and DAngelo reviewed due process hearing decisions from 1998 to

2000, and they found the decisions favored the schools in fifty-five percent of the hearings, the

parents in twenty-three percent, and had mix results in twenty-two percent (Heward, 2013).

IDEA requires states to offer parents an opportunity to discuss and solve the matter through

mediation by a third party. This happens before a due process hearing, and stands as a useful tool

in resolving conflict between parents and schools.

Parental participation and shared decision making means schools will collaborate with

parents and the student with disabilities in the planning and implementation of the students IEP;
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IDEA requires the IEP team to consider parental input and wishes for their child (Heward, 2013).

Educators should remain in constant communication with the parents. Informing the parents on

how the child adjusts to classes, interacts with others, and progresses towards his or her goals,

helps create a relationship between the teacher and the parents that allows for open

communication. Once parents feel comfortable with the teacher, they will trust them. They can

bring concerns for their child to the teacher. On average, children spend half their day at school

and the other half at home. If teachers and parents work together in forming ideas on how to

appropriately help children reach their IEP goals, then teachers can help at school and parents

can help at home. For example, parents can work on assignments with their child. Parental

participation remains a beneficial part of the students life.

IDEA transformed the education system, teachers roles, and lives of students with

disabilities. The law requires schools to educate all students with disabilities, offer them a free

appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment, nondiscriminatory evaluation,

procedural safeguards, and parental participation with shared decision making. After IDEA

passed, teachers have a larger responsibility to make certain each child progresses toward his or

her goals. Students with disabilities can participate in the general education classroom without

fear of segregation. The teacher will include all children in the class lessons, discussions, and

activities. The government passed IDEA with the intention of improving the lives of children

with disabilities, and it has succeeded.

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Works Cited

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

Department of Education (2014). Special Education Programs (ED/OSERS), W. D. (1994). Implementation

of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: Sixteenth Annual Report to Congress.

Heward, W. L., (2013). Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education (10th ed.). Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Turnbull, A. P. (2003). Reaching the ideal. Education Next, 3(1).

Write, P. (2011, Dec. 14). D.L. v. District of Columbia, School District's Failures Cause "Severe and Lasting

Harm" to Vulnerable Children with Disabilities. Wrightslaw. www.wrightslaw.com/