ABSTRACT
At the time of the original passage of P.L. 94-142 in 1975, special education advocates had worked patiently for a decade to extend the federal role in the education of children with disabilities. Following the model of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, they sought federal grants-inaid to underwrite more services for these students than states could provide on their own. They also successfully advocated for individual identification of each student with a disability, and funding to each state based on the number of children so identified. For the special education community, the victory was hard fought, the mood expansive, the time full of hope for state and federal cooperation to serve all children with disabilities, including the most severe, who typically had been excluded from public schools across the nation.
