international, national, state, and local influences on the establishment of exceptional student education in Dade County Public Schools

In Dade County Public Schools a program for exceptional students actually began in 1940 with four classes for the physically handicapped. Through legislation, policy issues, research, organizations, and parent groups, many people worked toward that goal long before 1940. Assistance for the handicapped in Europe can be traced back to the late 1700s; such support lent impetus for our culture to also assist the deviant. The first efforts toward providing an education for the handicapped were directed toward students with visible conditions, primarily the physically impaired, the deaf, and the blind. Then the movement to help the mentally retarded was initiated. Special education progressed through: segregation in institutions; limited integration with special classes housed in regular school facilities; and integration, or mainstreaming, in classes with regular students. Legislation at the federal and state levels assisted the ESE movement, as had policy changes at the local level. The mandate of P.L. 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, signed into law in 1975, brought about dramatic changes in ESE. The purpose of this historial analysis was to depict the influences that resulted in the establishment of special education in Dade County Public Schools and the improvement of ESE programs in what is now the fourth largest school district in the United States.