The Education for All Handicapped Children Act: Schools as Agents of Social Reform

The Education for All Handicapped Children Act is an unusual piece of legislation in that it has continued to enjoy bipartisan support in an era of shrinking federal investment in such programs. Judith Singer and John Butler report the findings of a study on the Act's implementation in five diverse school districts across the country, conducted during the fifth through the eighth years of the Act's existence. The process of equilibration between federal demands and the local capacity to respond provides a central focus for the authors as they ask how, and how well, the schools have functioned as agents of social reform. While they find that both significant transformation of attitude and social reform have occurred, they also point to inequities whose roots in the social fabric make them difficult for the schools alone to overcome.