Special Education: The Diana V. Rile Court Case

Special Education in America has grown enormously in the last hundred years. In the early 1900s special education classrooms had just recently been organized in the United States and “The first formal training for public school teachers [that taught special education] began at the Training School at Vineland, New Jersey, in 1904 (Johnson 1909; ‘Summer School for Teachers’)” (Trent 294). The first service animals weren’t employed until almost the end of 1928. Disability services weren’t properly provided until well past the 1950’s. Due to racial court cases, disabled students’ parents were able to sue for equal rights for their children. These court cases helped to strengthen the education that is offered to special education students in the

The Larry P. v Riles court case happened in San Francisco School District and again regarded using disability classrooms as a way to discriminate against non-white students. The Diana v. State Board of Education court case had determined that students must be given a intelligence test in their primary language but didn’t recognize the true issue. “Larry was a young black child who was assessed using an IQ test which had been standardized using middle class white students. The results of the assessment indicated Larry was educable mentally retarded and he was placed in a self-contained class for instruction” (Wilson & Wiggins 655) An issue that was highlighted in the Larry P. v Riles court case was that African-Americans and Mexican-Americans were being labeled as mentally retarded and placed in special education classrooms. Because they were receiving the test in their primary language (English) they had to sue for this specific issue. They requested in 1973 to have a panel of judges determine if it was discrimination, but this was denied. In 1974 they expanded the court case to include all students in the area who had been discriminated against. So, 1975 schools were temporarily denied from using intelligence tests due to this. The court determined that San Francisco School District had discriminated against African-American students. Because of determining that the San Francisco School District was using intelligence tests to

However, SES status information (parent's education, occupation, and income level) often is not recorded. When it is reported, students both black and white with disabilities typically come from homes with significantly lower SES levels than the general student population. In an unpublished study (cited in Reschly, 1997), it was reported that when poverty status was equated, the incidence of special education was equalized.” (Buss 5)

President Bush (the younger) was involved with IDEA in 2004. IDEA requires schools to find and evaluate students who are suspected of having a disability at no cost to the parents. This places the responsibility on the schools, and removes their excuse of ignorance. Once the students are identified as being disabled they are supposed to be accommodated so that they receive a fair and equal