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Special Kids, Special Parents, Special Education, Karen Syma Czapanskiy

Faculty Scholarship

Many parents are raising children whose mental, physical, cognitive, emotional, or developmental issues diminish their capacity to be educated in the same ways as other children. Over six million of these children receive special education services under mandates of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, called the IDEA. Once largely excluded from public education, these children are now entitled to a free appropriate education. In this article, I argue that the special education system must begin to pay attention to the needs of parents if it is going to fully serve the children. In particular, the system needs to support …