A CONFERENCE FOR THESE TIMES NEEDS TO BE

PRO-ACTIVE, CREATIVE, PRODUCTIVE, INSPIRATIONAL, AND HEALING

Fifty years ago, Public Law 94-142 was enacted to establish and nationally mandate the civil rights of students with special needs.  It defined and affirmed twin goals:

1. universal access to individuated, appropriate, effective intervention, undertaken through

2. partnerships between the professional educators and clinicians working in public school districts and the individual families of the children they exist to serve. 

This dual vision defined and required adoption of cooperative mechanisms that would bring families from the periphery of parent/teacher conferences and PTA meetings into active participation in the design and delivery of their children’s education. 

It codified attention to the needs of disabled children and it did so by embracing procedures characterized by mutual respect for, and response to, the inspiration provided by each child.

Much has been accomplished in these 50 years; and yet, at least for some, the ills that the original law was meant to address have gotten worse, not better.

Critically, the partnership presumed, encouraged, actually directed by the law has often devolved into a tug of war between adversaries, characterized by hostility and distrust.

IDEA50ny seeks to restore and rebuild trust in the power that our achievements can wield when they are driven by shared dedication to the principles on which the law was based.  The conference means to do far more than mark the fiftieth anniversary of the protection of the right of children with disabilities to educations that prepare them – and their siblings and able peers – for their fullest participation in the society they will grow up into.  It means to be inspirational, provocative, iconoclastic.  It intends to be a call to, and a foundation for, action.

The mission of IDEA50ny therefore is expressed in four linked goals:

• Recognition – of what we have accomplished;

• Assessment -- of where we have fallen short;

• Aspiration – to take action expressive of the primacy of the child and of the complementary responsibilities of the district and the family; and

• Collaboration expressive of trust among expert clinicians, responsible educators, and dedicated parents, trust between districts and families.

IDEA50ny calls out to all of us who are and have been engaged in crafting and delivering the fruits of the law’s vision over these five decades, to pause, convene, reflect, reaffirm, and plan together how we can and will go forward in the face of an uncertain future and a challenging present to assure the law’s continued commitment to the civil rights of students with special needs.

It is a call – in the name of the IDEA – to evaluate, to heal, to restore, to move forward.