OSEP Releases Fast Facts on Asian, Hispanic and/or Latino Children with Disabilities

OSEP Fast Facts: Asian Children with Disabilities

OSEP Fast Facts: Asian Children with Disabilities

OSEP Fast Facts: Hispanic and/or Latino Children with Disabilities

OSEP Fast Facts: Hispanic and/or Latino Children with Disabilities

By the Office of Special Education Program

OSEP is excited to release two new Fast Facts that take a closer look at our IDEA 618 data on race and ethnicity.

For our Asian Children with Disabilities and Hispanic and/or Latino Children with Disabilities Fast Facts we present data from the data collections authorized under IDEA Section 618 including that collected through child count, educational environments, discipline and exiting data collections. 

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IDEA45: Happy Birthday IDEA!

George Sugai
IDEA-45 logo. IDEA 45. #IDEA45 Years. 1975-2020. Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.

Happy Birthday, IDEA!

By George Sugai
Professor Emeritus, Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut


The 45th anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is particularly meaningful to me and to students with disabilities for four main reasons.

First, my career as a special educator began in Aurora, Colorado in the Fall of 1974. Although we were definitely “attempting to figure things out,” we developed the district’s first IDEA-shaped resource rooms for elementary, middle, and high school students with emotional and behavioral disorders; we wrote many of the first IEPs; and we created and implemented some of the first behavior intervention plans. IDEA gave us the vision, expectation, accountability, and responsibility to greatly enhance our special education efforts. For the first time, the education of students with disabilities and their families became a protected right and a reality rather than an informal afterthought. In addition, special education became an integral component and priority in general education.

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IDEA45: The Personnel Who Deliver the Promise

Jane West
IDEA 45th Anniversary logo

The Personnel Who Deliver the Promise of IDEA into the Lives of Children and Families: A Reflection on the 45th Anniversary of IDEA

By Jane E. West, Ph.D.


I began my journey as a special educator in 1973. My first job was as a paraprofessional for students with emotional disturbance. The program was intended to transition students who had been in psychiatric hospitals back into public school. Our classroom was housed in a trailer on the playground of an elementary school in the Bronx.

Fresh out of college with a degree in literature, I was very keen on poetry. With the support of the teacher in charge of my class, I developed a curriculum on poetry. Much to my delight, the students were all in. They wrote some magnificent poems. Shortly after we finished the unit, the principal announced a school wide poetry contest. Elated, I met with him and provided the students’ work for submission to the contest. After looking at the poems briefly, he returned them to me saying, “There is no way those students could have written those poems.” I was devastated. 

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IDEA45: A Milestone for Civil Rights

Kanika Littleton
IDEA 45th Anniversary logo

A Milestone for Civil Rights: Celebrating 45 Years of IDEA

By Kanika Littleton


In the United States, over 7 million children and young adults receive special education programs and services through the Individualized Education Program (IEP). These students are entitled to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) as outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA encompasses the rights of students with disabilities to have access to the general education curriculum and to the greatest extent possible, be educated with their typically developing peers.

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IDEA45: Supporting a Free Appropriate Public Education

Doug and Lynn Fuchs
IDEA 45th Anniversary logo

Forty-Five Years of IDEA-Funded Research Supporting a
“Free Appropriate Public Education”

By Douglas Fuchs and Lynn Fuchs, Vanderbilt University


On this 45th anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), we reflect on the research that IDEA legislation (and its successive reauthorizations) has facilitated. More specifically, we discuss its focus, quality, and meaningfulness for children and youth with and without disabilities.

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