The History of Special Education: From Isolation to Integration

Bibliography

Chapter 12 / Approaching Integration 381 Western society began to reject the policies that once subjected the severely handicapped to lifelong institutionalization. The normalization credo provides guidelines for the treatment of disabled people as well as concrete suggestions for action. The policy offers disabled people the chance of a normal life routine, normal developmental experiences, independent choices, and the right to live, work, and play in normal surroundings. Disabled persons are encouraged to remain in their own communities through the availability of foster homes, group homes, hostels, community training centers, day-care facilities, and community-based social services. Ultimately, normalization will have occurred when exceptional individuals live with members of the cultural group in a normal domicile within the community, and when they have access to all the privileges and services that are available to others (see Wolfensberger, 1972). An obvious outgrowth of the philosophy of normalization is the process of deinstitutionalization. In the physical sense, deinstitutionalization implies the movement of individuals from large institutions into community-based living arrangements such as group homes and halfway houses. In the broader social context, deinstitutionalization means integrating exceptional individuals into the mainstream. The traditional obstacles raised by disabling conditions are overcome as exceptional people fill a variety of roles in general society (Winzer, 1993). When the principle of normalization was extended to the school-aged child, it resulted in a parallel educational process known as mainstreaming. Underlying this movement is the belief that all children have individual differences that must be respected. Under a policy of mainstreaming special education stops functioning as a device for sorting exceptional children according to assigned labels. Instead, it offers a range of services to enable the tailoring of educational programs to meet individual needs. As normalization principles became more manifest in practice, educators came to agree that all children, exceptionality notwithstanding, have the right to an appropriate education at public expense. Normalization prompted a powerful surge in the educational system toward abandoning many special classes and replacing them with regular class programs supported by special education services. PuBLIC LAW 94-142 Three main reasons underlay the sudden transformation from segregated to integrated educational placement. One had to do with the gradual accumulation of empirical data on the effectiveness of special classes and concerns for the identification of minority-group children. A second reason revolved around the increasingly complex body of empirical knowledge concerning the learning of children in school and behavior problems. This research dissuaded educators and related professionals from the idea that homogeneous diagnostic categories exist for exceptional children. Rather, the research argued for individualized educational planning for each child receiving special education (Forness, 1981). Finally, emerging legislation and litigation supported the movement. 382 Part 4 / Segregation and Integration Although much of the federal legislation for the disabled was passed between 1959 and 1967 (Chaves, 1977), none of it dealt with mainstreaming or compulsory attendance of handicapped children in local school systems (Sigmon , 1982-83). Moreover, legislation for special education has long been of the permissive rather than the mandatory type. The case for mandatory special education legislation was made primarily from what was wrong with education, or the lack of education, for the disabled, not from new knowledge and professional attitudes that needed a legitimate vehicle for delivery (Paul and Warnock, 1980). In the early 1970s reports in the United States indicated that 4 million of a total 7 million exceptional youngsters were being inappropriately or inadequately served (Meadow, 1980). Together with the empirical evidence of studies on segregated classes, parent activism, and professional pressure, these reports stimulated the passage of mandatory legislation. A line of legislation that began in 1965 (J. A. C. Smith, 1980) culminated in Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, signed into law by President Gerald R. Ford in November 1975. The new law was a legislative remedy for the failure of some schools to provide appropriate education for disabled students. It represented official recognition by the government of the United States of the growing dissatisfaction with the placement of exceptional students in segregated settings (Johnson and Cartwright, 1979). The law also altered the concept of special education, to bring it in line with the principles of normalization and the least restrictive environment (Karagianis and Nesbit, 1981). With the passage of Public Law 94-142, the new philosophy became increasingly manifest in practice (Ballard and Zettel, 1978). The law defined the requirements for reaching and enriching the lives of individuals not adequately served by traditional educational...