2. EDU Artifact #2.

Choose a Supreme Court case that involves special

education and write about the case and how it has changed the course

of history for students in special education

One Supreme Court case that involves special education is Mills v.

Board of Education of the District of Columbia (348 F. Supp. 866; 1972)

In this case, seven special-needs school-age children were denied by the

District of Columbia School Board to their right to free and public

education. The Board of Education alleged the children were unable to

be educated in public schools due to their exceptional needs, which

included mental illness and mental retardation. The Board further

claimed the cost of providing private educational services was too

expensive; therefore, the children remained at home without access to

an education.

The District of Columbia made clear that deprivation suffered by

the children of that school clearly violated their right to a public school

education. The court added that if there were not enough funds available

to provide all of the needed programming, then the board had to do its

best to apportion the monies in such a way as to ensure that no child

was denied the opportunity to benefit from a public school education. In

sum, the court pointed out that the inadequacies present in the school

system, whether caused by insufficient funding or poor administration,

could not be allowed to impact more heavily on students with

disabilities.