Section 504, Special Education, and the Importance of the Department of Education

As someone who has served K-12 students and advocated for their needs, I am alarmed at the attacks on the basic laws and regulations that assure that all students have access to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE). As a parent, I am horrified. First, I want to share a flashback to the mid1970s when the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA, PL 94-142) first passed. My brother had very severe dyslexia and while that law required access to public education, it took years of advocacy for that to result in a quality public education. In 1975, when PL 94-142 passed, our high school created a “Special Education” room and just threw every student with a disability in there. They did not know much about educational needs for children with a range of learning differences, much less understand individualized education plans, and it was a disaster. But as parents, schools and advocates began to demand the progress IDEA promised, they shaped practice under the law, education improved, or at least had the potential to. Families still had to know their rights and even today often still need advocates to help address individual student needs.

A decade later, in the mid 1980s, when Aaron was in elementary school, he had rights and schools’ understanding of education practices and supports for students was developing. Unfortunately, i did not know much about those rights and schools in my community didn’t know about the effective strategies being developed across the country. Fast forward another decade to his youngest brother, and I knew those best practices and his rights which enabled me to advocate for his needs. But advocacy is nothing without the leverage the law provides. This is where Section 504, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and the Department of Education come in.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, passed in 1973, requires access to education for all children. It is broader than EHA (later IDEA), which would come a couple of years later, but 504 doesn’t require progress for individual students. It just requires access for people with disabilities to the same education or other public services that nondisabled people enjoy, as long as that service receives federal funds. In that way, it is the precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), that extends the demand for access across systems and structures. ADA is why we have curb cuts for wheel chair access, accessible bathrooms, and so much more. In schools, it may require access to software, adaptive equipment or other resources to allow access to education.

The EHA passed in 1975, and updates in 1990 changed the name to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This law requires that the school provide necessary accommodations and modifications for students with disabilities and that the student have an individualized education plan (IEP) that includes goals that are tracked to assure progress. It also requires that students be served in the least restrictive environment (LRE) possible (because we all know separate is NOT equal), and created due process to resolve conflicts between parents and schools. In order to qualify under IDEA, students must be evaluated and be found to fit specific disability labels. Disability Rights Texas and the ARC have produced a very user friendly manual for IDEA (link at bottom of this post).

The Department of Education is the federal entity that provides regulatory oversight to assure that 504 and IDEA legislation are followed, and it distributes funding for these programs, among others. In my state, Texas, there is a push to shift funds from public to private schools. This harms students with disabilities because private schools don’t generally provide special education or other specific supports to students who need them so those more expensive students get left in public schools while private schools skim off the easy students. I fear that the push to eliminate the Department of Education makes standards difficult to enforce and we may end up back decades when students like my brother, and later my oldest son, were just dumped in a room without any intention of educating them. Advocacy depends upon laws that are intended to be followed. How are 504 and IDEA funded and enforced without a Department of Education?