Twenty-seven percent of people with intellectual disabilities (aged 21-64) do not have a high school diploma ( American Community Survey, 2012).
The effects of segregation are significant. 31st Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of IDEA, 2009). Fifty-six percent of students (ages 6-21) with intellectual disabilities are primarily educated in separate classes or separate schools ( United States Department of Education. Although progress has been made, we still find widespread segregation of these students. In the 1960s it was rare to find any public school that integrated students with intellectual disabilities.
As the Court noted in Brown, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” That statement was a stimulus for a civil rights movement that sought to integrate people with disabilities into every aspect of society. There is a history of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities learning, living and working in separate settings. Since then, we have made progress in securing quality, integrated educational opportunities for American children with disabilities, but we still have a long way to go – particularly for children with intellectual disabilities. Before 1975, about one million American children with disabilities were receiving no education from the public school system. Board of Education ruling laid the foundation for the 1975 federal law (now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) requiring access to a free appropriate public education for all children with disabilities. This post is part of an ACSblog symposium noting the landmark decision and exploring the ongoing inequalities in our society. *May 17 is the 60th Anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court opinion, Brown v. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Chaired by Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa. Imparato is the Executive Director of the Association of University Centers on Disabilities and formerly served as Senior Counsel and Disability Policy Director for the U.S. Sherlock Center on Disabilities and a Professor of Special Education at Rhode Island College.
Regulation and the Administrative State.
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