Public Education System: Mills V. Board Of Education

In America, schools would only teach one out of five children with disabilities. More than a million students were refused entrance to public schools and another 3 million received little to no special instruction (Cook). Many states had laws that denied children with certain types of disabilities, including children who were blind, deaf, and children labeled "emotionally disturbed" or "mentally retarded,"and children with physical impairments such as cerebral palsy or a missing limb (Cook). There were two very important judicial cases that made an impact of the way the government looked students with disabilities. Mills vs. Board of Education of District of Columbia, was a lawsuit filed against the District of Columbia in the United States

During this time, children were denied education because they were classified as having behavioral issues.. The court claimed that the board of education had an obligation to provide education for all students, regardless of disability, and “by not providing equal protection and education for all students under law, the education system is stripping students of their natural rights, and therefore having a large impact on civil liberties in the United States,” (Mills). The second important case that occurred was the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens (PARC) v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This was a legal case from 1971-72 where the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was sued by the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens over a law that gave public schools the authority to deny a free education to children with an intellectual disability (Pennsylvania). For example, a public school was allowed to deny a student who had reached the age of 10, yet had not reached the mental age of 7. These landmark court decisions gave a responsibility of states to educate children with

It required accommodations in affected schools for the disabled including access to buildings and structures and improved integration into society (PL 93-112). Section 504 applies to all people throughout their lifetimes, not just from the ages of f 3–21 years old (PL 93-112). Special education programs in the United States were made mandatory in 1975 when the United States Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) which was sometimes referred to using the acronyms EAHCA or EHA, or Public Law (PL) 94-142, was enacted by the United States Congress in 1975 (Cook). In 1990, the EAHCA was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), in response to discriminatory treatment by public educational agencies against students with disabilities (Cook). IDEA requires states to provide special education and related services consistent with federal standards as a condition of receiving federal funds (Cook). IDEA is composed of four parts, the main two being part A and part B. Part A covers the general provisions of the law; Part B covers assistance for education of all children with disabilities; Part C covers infants and toddlers with disabilities which include children from birth to age three; and Part D is the national support programs