EDUCATION OF HANDICAPPED CHILDREN ACTS 84 Stat. 175, 88 Stat. 579, 89 Stat. 773, 91 Stat. 230

Title VI of the Elementary and Secondary Education Amendments of 1970, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (EAHCA), and the Education of the Handicapped Amendments of 1974 and 1977 provide funds and a variety of federal programs to assist states in educating and training handicapped individuals. In states receiving federal educational assistance for handicapped children, the acts require a state policy assuring all handicapped children the right to a free appropriate public education, assuring private school education at no cost to parents if children are placed in private schools as the means of fulfilling state responsibilities under the acts, offering an individual educational plan for every handicapped child, and providing education with nonhandicapped children to the "maximum extent appropriate." The acts require substantial procedural safeguards to assure receipt of a free appropriate public education. EAHCA provides a private right of action, after exhaustion of administrative remedies, to compel compliance.

Board of Education v. Rowley (1982), the Supreme Court's first interpretation of EAHCA, held that the statutorily mandated "free appropriate public education" need not provide each child an opportunity to achieve her full potential. The statute mandates only an "adequate" education, one reasonably calculated to enable the child to achieve passing marks and advance from grade to grade.

Theodore Eisenberg
(1986)

(see also: Disabilities, Rights of Persons With.)

Bibliography

Burgdorf, Robert L., Jr. 1980 The Legal Rights of Handicapped Persons. Pages 213–245. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.