To understand special education and the laws that govern it, one should understand the history of the field and the evolution of federal law in the area of education. Special education in public schools arose in the late 19th and early 20th century in response to compulsory attendance laws, which resulted in many students with disabilities attending school for the first time. However, before Public Law 94-142 (now IDEA) was passed, many students with disabilities did not attend schools and those who did were typically educated in separate schools and classrooms, were not challenged by the curriculum, and were not identified using valid assessment procedures. In the middle 20th Century, parental advocacy for children with disabilities grew, resulting in courts cases that ruled for an appropriate education for students with disabilities. The federal government was also becoming more involved in education and began to pass laws to provide states with the resources to provide better educational opportunities to at-risk students. These forces gave rise to Public Law 94-142 and the national system of special education that we now have in the US.
The Felix Consent Decree is particularly important in the history of special education law in Hawaii. In 1994 the state entered into a consent decree agreement to improve special education and mental health services in reaction to a class action suit, filed on behalf of Jennifer Felix and other students with disabilities, in which it was ruled that Hawaii was not providing required and necessary educational and mental health services to qualified children. The consent decree was not lifted until 2005 when the courts were satisfied that Hawaii was in substantial compliance with special education laws. The Felix Consent decree has had a number of important effects on special education in Hawaii, including greatly increasing the special education budget, the creation of over 300 student service coordinator positions, and a substantial increase in the number of children with disabilities identified and served.
