The persistence of low expectations in special education law viewed through the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence.pdfVIP

International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 33 (2010) 375–397 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Law and Psychiatry The persistence of low expectations in special education law viewed through the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence Richard Peterson Pepperdine University School of Law, United States article info Keywords: Low expectations Children disabilities Education Therapeutic abstract For more than thirty-?ve years a paradigm of low expectations has infected efforts to educate children with disabilities and has been a persistent and stubborn obstacle to the successful implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and its predecessor, the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA). This dilemma raises questions addressed in this paper: What is meant by low expectations in the context of Special Education Law? What are the root causes of this phenomenon, and what makes it so resistant to change? How does it impede implementation of the IDEA? And lastly, in what ways does the paradigm of low expectations impact children with disabilities socially, emotionally, and psychologically? The primary purpose of this paper is to consider these questions, particularly the last, utilizing therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ), a theoretical lens through which the emotional and psychological impact of the law and its processes upon those who interact in its context may be viewed and analyzed. ? 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA), Public Law 94–142, was enacted in 1975.1 Amending the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965,2 this statute represented a major shift in educational public policy with its primary purpose to “assure that all handicapped children have available to them … a free appropriate public education which emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs….”3 This change marked the ?rst