What Was School Like for Students With Disabilities Before IDEA?

Jean Crockett was a general education teacher before the U.S. Department of Education was established and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was implemented. She recalls having a student in her classroom in 1978 who was non-verbal and would bark during reading time. 

“I was unprepared for this child, but he was also unprepared for what he was stepping into,” Crockett says. “But fortunately, it was 1978 and the regulations in IDEA [then known as Education for All Handicapped Children Act] came into effect.”  

Before, there was no measure on how to educate students with disabilities, no protocol on whether they were receiving a free, appropriate public education, Crockett says. 

Crockett, now a professor emerita of special education at the University of Florida, brought her student, Louis, to the school psychologist for an evaluation. He was referred to a special education class where he received the support he needed.  

“For children like Louis and for teachers like Jean, before IDEA was really up and swinging, there really wasn't much of a spotlight on educating children with disabilities,” Crockett says. 

The Need for Access and Accountability 

Before the Department of Education, there existed an Office of Education, which, for a little over a century, mostly focused on gathering data about the state of education across the country. 

By the 1960s, the growing recognition about widening inequities in education  made a cabinet-level position necessary.  

The U.S. Department of Education was established in 1979, through the Department of Education Organization Act under President Jimmy Carter. Congress created the department to ensure access to equal educational opportunity, supplement the efforts of the states, encourage increased involvement, and increase accountability of federal education programs. 

"Increasingly, there was this orientation towards some degree of nationalization for the state, of trying to produce a little bit more equity and to some degree, equality, at least when it comes to student rights and the way that students were being treated,” explains Jack Schneider, professor on education policy and director of the Center for Education Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Historic Laws 

Equity in education was not the norm before the Department of Education. Jim Crow laws enforced segregation in public schooling, so white children and children of color couldn’t go to school together. Native American students were often sent to federally run boarding schools to assimilate the students into white culture. Girls were often taught different curriculums with fewer opportunities for higher education. 

Another key group was left out of education: students with disabilities.  

“Students with disabilities weren't educated in most cases,” Schneider says. “They were turned away, and their families were told that the school didn't have the facilities, didn't have the resources to serve their kids.” 

Some students with disabilities were in school but were provided with little to no accommodations. No one was tracking how many were not getting an education at all, says Edwin Martin, the first assistant secretary of education for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services and a key player in crafting the legislation that established the federal role in special education. 

“Mostly girls [were in the classrooms], the boys usually were dropouts,” he says. “And they said if the girls were good, as long as they were quiet and sat in the back of the classroom and didn't bother anybody, they could go through.” 

In 1967, around 200,000 people with disabilities were living in state institutions, provided only with minimal food and shelter. It wasn’t until the late 1950s that attention started shifting to special education, beginning with training teachers to work with students with disabilities and building up to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. 

In 1975, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, which would be reauthorized in 1990 as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. These historic laws required schools to provide equal access to education for all students with disabilities – and that the federal government would help with any costs.  

Before the IDEA was passed, some states did have laws on educating students with disabilities, but the laws were seldom enforced, Martin said. Many states would have to educate students with disabilities, but only if they were aware of them, so many avoided seeking them out. 

“They tried not to find the kids, because if they found them, they had to do something with them,” Martin said. “So, we wrote Child Find into the law as a requirement.” 

Child Find, a section of IDEA states that the state must identify, locate and evaluate all children with disabilities who are in need of special education services.  

What We Stand to Lose 

There is a sense of mission that exists within the Department of Education, that would be lost if it gets dismantled, Martin said.

“I never worked with a group of special educators that was any better or brighter or harder working or committed than the people [at the Department], and that, I think, while it started before the Department of Education, that has continued. And that's really what would be missing if they divide this up.” 

More states are turning to school vouchers, but students don’t have the same rights in private schools as they do in public schools. In private schools, students are not entitled to free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment. The intent behind IDEA and similar legislation was to give young people rights, and a more equal experience.  

“We've worked to build out a system that does and, as imperfect as it may be, it comes closer to realizing our promises in the year 2025, than it has in any previous generation,” Schneider says. “So, I think we have a lot to lose right now.” 

If the federal role in public education is dismantled, IDEA will likely get moved to another department, along with the other programs meant to protect vulnerable students. That mission will become more difficult, Schneider says, because without the oversight of the Education Department, IDEA’s positive impact will be greatly reduced.

“I think what we'll see is lower levels of capacity, more cracks opening up for students to slip through, for their rights to slip through with them,” Schneider says.  

Parents and Educators Coming Together

Educators across the country have been coming together to raise the alarm about the efforts to dismantle the Department of Education. The NEA has been hosting rallies across the country, including the Protect Students and Public Schools rally in front of the U.S. Capitol in February. 

And on March 19, thousands of educators, parents and community leaders held "walk-ins" outside public schools across the country to stop funding cuts to programs that so many students depend on.

Despite the steep challenges, Crockett says the advocacy and support behind programs such as IDEA is reason for optimism.

“I think there will be bumps in the road, there might be some setbacks,” Crockett says. “But the strength that people, over generations have shown for trying to better the lives of others— that's something to build on. I don't think that's going to go away.” 

Martin says collaboration between all stakeholders is a powerful advocacy tool. “As things start heading south in terms of federal government leadership, I think the only way we'll get out of this is for the parents and the special educators together, as we did all along, to team up. You need that energy from the grassroots.”