THE LEGISLATIVE AND LITIGATION HISTORY OF SPECIAL-EDUCATION

Between the mid 1960s and 1975, state legislatures, the federal courts , and the U.S. Congress spelled out strong educational rights for chil dren with disabilities. Forty-five state legislatures passed laws mand ating, encouraging, and/or funding special education programs. Federal courts, interpreting the equal protection and due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ruled that schoo ls could not discriminate on the basis of disability and that parents had due process rights related to their children's schooling. Congress , in legislation now retitled the Individuals with Disabilities Educat ion Act (IDEA), laid out detailed procedural protections regarding eli gibility for special educational services, parental rights, individual ized education programs (IEPs), the requirement that children be serve d in the least restrictive environment, and the need to provide relate d (noneducational) services. Decisions on instructional matters such a s curricula and the elements of the IEP remain the province of local a nd state authorities. Advocates for students with disabilities have co ntinually sought separate (categorical) funding for special education services. Current movements toward block grants rather than categorica l programs and toward greater inclusion of special education students in general education classrooms raise concerns in some quarters about whether students with disabilities will continue to have full access t o the special services they need. While the cost of special services m ay be an unexpressed criterion in many decisions made by school distri cts, nowhere does the IDEA explicitly allow cost to be considered. Whe re a service is necessary for an individual child, cost considerations would not allow a school district to escape its obligations to the ch ild. However, in instances where more than one appropriate configurati on of services is available to meet a child's needs, the school distri ct may be allowed to consider the cost of different alternatives.