Opinion ID: 524050
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Education For All Handicapped Children

Text: 36 The Act was a response to tomes of testimony and evidence that handicapped children were being systematically excluded from education outright, or were receiving grossly inadequate education. The Office of Education provided Congress with a report documenting that there were eight million handicapped children, and that more than four million of them were not receiving an appropriate education, including almost two million who were receiving no education at all. See S.Rep. No. 168, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. 8 (1975), reprinted in 1975 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News, 1425, 1432 [hereinafter Senate Report]; H.R.Rep. No. 332, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. 11 (1975) [hereinafter House Report]; codified at 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1400(b)(1)-(4). There were innumerable individuals, including parents, teachers, and other professionals, who gave testimony at the congressional hearings confirming the exclusion of handicapped children from educational services. See, e.g., Education for all Handicapped Children, 1973-74: Hearings on S6 Before the Subcomm. on the Handicapped of the Senate Comm. on Labor and Public Welfare, 93d Cong., 1st Sess. (1973-74) [hereinafter Senate Hearings]. 37 The record is replete with statements by legislators that the Act was in response to this deplorable state of affairs: 38 Exclusion from school, institutionalization, the lack of appropriate services to provide attention to the individual child's need--indeed, the denial of equal rights by a society which proclaims liberty and justice for all of its people--are echoes which the subcommittee has found throughout all of its hearings.... 39 Senate Hearings at 1155-56 (emphasis added) (remarks of Sen. Williams, Committee Chairman, principal author of bill). 40 For many years handicapped children have been placed in institutions, or segregated in schools and classes, or left to sit at home, where they have not received the educational opportunity which is their right under the law. 41 Senate Hearings at 1153 (emphasis added) (remarks of Sen. Mondale, Subcommittee member). 42 What we are after in this legislation is to rewrite one of the saddest chapters in American education, a chapter in which we were silent while young children were shut away and condemned to a life without hope. This legislation offers them hope, hope that whatever their handicap, they will be given the chance to develop their abilities as individuals and to reach out with their peers for their own personal goals and dreams. 43 Senate Hearings at 341 (emphasis added) (remarks of Sen. Kennedy, co-sponsor of bill). 44 Moreover, the legislative history is unambiguous that the primary purpose of the Act was to remedy the then current state of affairs, and provide a public education for all handicapped children. As the Committee Chairman, Senator Williams stated: 45 We must recognize our responsibility to provide education for all children which meets their unique needs. The denial of the right to education and to equal opportunity within this Nation for handicapped children--whether it be outright exclusion from school, the failure to provide an education which meets the needs of a single handicapped child, or the refusal to recognize the handicapped child's right to grow--is a travesty of justice and a denial of equal protection of the law. 46 120 Cong.Rec. S15271 (1974). 47 Most states have legal provisions which authorize school authorities to exclude certain [handicapped] children from public school.... [This] act establishes a target date of 1976 for bringing all of the Nation's handicapped children into adequate programs. 48 Senate Hearings at 342 (emphasis added) (remarks of Sen. Brooke, co-sponsor of bill). 49 Recent court decisions ... have made it clearer than ever that we have not only a moral but also a legal obligation to provide the opportunity for every handicapped citizen to insure his or her highest educational potential. An important provision of the bill before us today would require that every State have in effect a policy stating the right of all handicapped children to a free appropriate public education.... The bill would also require that each handicapped child be treated as an individual with unique strengths and weaknesses, and not as a member of a category of children all presumed to have the same needs. 50 Senate Hearings at 1153-54 (emphasis added) (remarks of Sen. Mondale, Subcommittee member). 4 The Senate Committee recognized the need for a final date in legislation by which time all handicapped children are to be provided a free appropriate public education, and that the failure to provide a right to education to handicapped children cannot be allowed to continue. Senate Report at 7, 9 (1975), 1975 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News, 1431, 1433. Senator Williams, the principal author of the statute, described the Conference Report: 51 This measure fulfills the promise of the Constitution that there shall be equality of education for all people and that handicapped children no longer will be left out.... The conference report establishes as a matter of law ... provisions which will assure the right to education for all handicapped children in the United States. It establishes a process by which the goal of educating all handicapped can and will be established.... [I]t require[s] an individualized education program tailored to the unique needs of each handicapped child.... [It] protects against handicapped children being excluded from school by requiring that all such children aged 3 to 18 be served.... [It] establishes the State educational agency as solely responsible for the provision of free appropriate education to all handicapped children in the State.... [T]he timetable and priorities assure that the goals of this act will be met for each and every handicapped child within a State. 52 121 Cong.Rec. S37413-14 (1975) (emphasis added). 5 53