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Possible additions to Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens (PARC) v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Right to Ed

file:///E:/Newdownload/Summer%202018%20PA%20Message.pdf

PARC v. Commonwealth of PA

Local TV reporter Bill Baldini’s 1968 television expose “Suffer the Little Children” (CITE) affected the direction of the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded [sic] Children (PARC). The conditions at Pennhurst were visibly inhumane and morally unacceptable. The leadership of PARC reached a decision in 1969 to pursue legal action to improve conditions. Thomas J. Gilhool, a Yale-educated attorney whose brother was living in another Pennsylvania institution, was selected to advise and represent PARC. After study, Gilhool offered several options for action, one of which was to sue for a right to public education. That option would permit children with major disabilities to go to school rather than stay at home, and exclusion from school was then the primary factor in forcing parents to send their children to Pennhurst and places like it. PARC chose that option. (Cite)

file:///E:/Newdownload/Summer%202018%20PA%20Message.pdf

Laski, F. (1985). Right to habilitation and right to education: The legal foundation. In R.H. Bruininks and K.C. Lakin (Eds.), Living and learning in the least restrictive environment (pp. 67-79). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

On January 7, 1971, PARC v. Commonwealth of PA was filed in Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.. In their lawsuit, PARC challenged the constitutionality of a state law allowing de jure exclusion of children with intellectual disabilities from school. The statute assigned the responsibility for children with intellectual disabilities to the Department of Public Welfare. As a result of exclusion from school, large numbers of children with disabilities were institutionalized while they were still of school age. The case was resolved quickly, in 1972, in a consent decree establishing the right of all children with intellectual disabilities to attend public schools. The decree became widely known as the “Right to Education.” The decree became a model for a national right to education law passed in 1974.

The least restrictive environment: its origins and interpretations in special education

By Jean B. Crockett, James M. Kauffman

Edition: illustrated

Published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999

ISBN 0805831029, 9780805831023

236 pages

Being bold