In 1971, John Lennon (Lennon, 1971) encouraged us to imagine all the people, sharing all the world.
So, imagine.
The year is 1974. Imagine being the parents of a first-grade boy with an intellectual disability. Imagine watching as the school bus comes to pick up all the neighborhood children. But it does not stop to pick up your son. The boy was our son, Jay. Just as there had been no early education for him, so too the school doors were closed to him and many with disabilities.
That changed in 1975, when Congress enacted Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142, 20 U.S.C. Secs. 1400 et seq., renamed in 1990 as Individuals With Disabilities Act, P.L. 101-476). Jay and all students with disabilities now had a right to an education, because research had shown that all can learn.
Now imagine teenagers in a segregated high...