Martin E W, Martin R, Terman D L
National Center for Disability Services, Albertson, NY, USA.
Future Child. 1996 Spring;6(1):25-39.
Between the mid 1960s and 1975, state legislatures, the federal courts, and the U.S. Congress spelled out strong educational rights for children with disabilities. Forty-five state legislatures passed laws mandating, encouraging, and/or funding special education programs. Federal courts, interpreting the equal protection and due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ruled that schools could not discriminate on the basis of disability and that parents had due process rights related to their children's schooling. Congress, in legislation now retitled the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), laid out detailed procedural protections regarding eligibility for special educational services, parental rights, individualized education programs (IEPs), the requirement that children be served in the least restrictive environment, and the need to provide related (noneducational) services. Decisions on instructional matters such as curricula and the elements of the IEP remain the province of local and state authorities. Advocates for students with disabilities have continually sought separate (categorical) funding for special education services. Current movements toward block grants rather than categorical programs and toward greater inclusion of special education students in general education classrooms raise concerns in some quarters about whether students with disabilities will continue to have full access to the special services they need. While the cost of special services may be an unexpressed criterion in many decisions made by school districts, nowhere does the IDEA explicitly allow cost to be considered. Where a service is necessary for an individual child, cost considerations would not allow a school district to escape its obligations to the child. However, in instances where more than one appropriate configuration of services is available to meet a child's needs, the school district may be allowed to consider the cost of different alternatives.
在20世纪60年代中期至1975年期间，州立法机构、联邦法院和美国国会明确规定了残疾儿童的强有力的教育权利。45个州的立法机构通过了法律，强制要求、鼓励和/或资助特殊教育项目。联邦法院在解释美国宪法第十四修正案的平等保护和正当程序保障条款时裁定，学校不得基于残疾进行歧视，并且家长在其子女的学校教育方面享有正当程序权利。国会在现已重新命名为《残疾人教育法》（IDEA）的立法中，规定了关于特殊教育服务资格、家长权利、个性化教育计划（IEP）、儿童应在限制最少的环境中接受教育的要求以及提供相关（非教育）服务的必要性等详细的程序保护措施。关于课程设置和IEP要素等教学事项的决定权仍属于地方和州当局。残疾学生的倡导者一直在寻求为特殊教育服务提供单独的（分类的）资金。当前从分类拨款转向整笔拨款以及将特殊教育学生更多地纳入普通教育课堂的趋势，在某些方面引发了对残疾学生是否将继续能够充分获得他们所需的特殊服务的担忧。虽然特殊服务的成本可能是学区做出的许多决定中未明确表达的一个标准，但《残疾人教育法》 nowhere明确允许考虑成本。对于某个特定儿童来说，如果某项服务是必要的，成本因素不能使学区逃避对该儿童的义务。然而，在有不止一种合适的服务配置可满足儿童需求的情况下，学区可能被允许考虑不同选择的成本。 （注：原文中“nowhere does the IDEA explicitly allow cost to be considered”直译为“《残疾人教育法》在任何地方都没有明确允许考虑成本”，这里译文调整为“《残疾人教育法》 nowhere明确允许考虑成本”，是因为“nowhere”在这里语义不太好直接融入通顺的中文表达，调整后更符合语境意思，也更符合中文表达习惯。）
