NPR's story about IDEA's 50th anniversary
Are the celebratory chimes one hears actually a death knell?
US National Public Radio education reporter Cory Turner wrote about some of the difficulties that children with disabilities and their families face at the time of the 50th anniversary of the landmark US laws establishing those children’s right to a free and appropriate public education. In “50 years after the birth of special education, some fear for its future under Trump,” published on line 3 December 2025 and heard on the air that same day, Mr. Turner covered not just the anniversary of the signing of the Education of All Handicapped Children Act in 1975, but also current issues that will be familiar to readers of Special Education Today. Here is Mr. Turner’s lede
Fifty years ago, just after Thanksgiving of 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, the landmark law that created special education as it exists today, and guaranteed all children with disabilities the right to a “free appropriate public education.”
Yet, “rather than celebrating progress, we face a crisis,” warned a recent letter to Congress, signed by hundreds of disability, civil rights and education groups.
That crisis, according to the letter, is “the dismantling of the very infrastructure Congress created to ensure children with disabilities could reach their full potential.”
Mr. Turner reported on interviews with “40 parents, educators, disability-rights advocates, subject matter experts and Education Department staffers,” (including at least two members of the SET community: Edwin Martin and Jacqueline Rodriguez. He visited news stories such as the efforts to dismantle the Education Department, the mishandling of civil rights complaints, and the potential problems with eliminating federal oversight and making states responsible for both delivering special education services and policing whether students rights are protected,
That is one powerful piece that was written. I think Mr. Turner did a great job including the history of IDEA, the personalized piece about Brooklynn, and the concerns of present. I think it was made more powerful with the warnings at the end of the piece. I think that needs to be spread widely across social media to make everyone aware that while today is a day to celebrate individuals with disabilities and IDEA, we can't truly celebrate until we know that future is secure for special education.