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A Lawyers’ View of Special Education: Past, Present and Future*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2016

Robert Hayes  and
Susan Macalpine
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Extract

Richard Nixon was moved to exclaim that: “writing is the toughest thing I have ever done”. We feel similarly daunted at the prospect of writing about the legal system’s miserly treatment of children in need of special schooling. But at least we will be saved in our endeavours from the temptation of the lawyers’ notorious prolixity. For the story is a short and simple one. It will be very difficult to make it long and complicated.

There is no doubt that a great deal has been achieved in special education over the past few years. We can only speak of the Sydney and Melbourne metropolitan areas. But it is probably true to say that in them, most children with disabilities can be reasonably sure of receiving a high quality education in an educational setting which is well provided with resources. But this is because it is currently Government policy in these States to provide disabled children with a place in a mainstream school, where this is feasible.

Type
Challenge
Information
Australasian Journal of Special Education , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , November 1986 , pp. 33 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © The Australian Association of Special Education 1986

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References

(1) As Matthew Ricketson did in his report, “Quandary for Disabled Children”, “Victoria’s Programme of Integrating Disabled Children into Mainstream Classrooms has Run into Problems”, in the Australian, Tuesday 3 February 1987, page 12.

(2) See report by Matthew Ricketson in the Australian, footnote 1 above.

(3) See S. C. Hayes and R. A. Hayes, Simply Criminal (Methuen Law Book Co., 1984) for a description of the simply criminal way in which intellectually handicapped people are treated in the criminal justice system.

(4) Schools in Australia, report of the interim committee for the Australian Schools Commission (AGPS, Canberra, 1973).

(5) In particular, the Disabled Persons Accommodation Act 1963; Sheltered Employment Assistance Act 1967; Handicapped Children’s Assistance Act 1970; and Handicapped Persons Assistance Act 1974. Also, Commonwealth Schools Commission Act 1973, footnote 4 above.

(6) Discrimination on the ground of intellectual impairment was inserted in the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Act, 1977, in December 1982, following release of a report by the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board entitled Discrimination and Intellectual Handicap, in December 1981. The Victorian Equal Opportunity Act 1984 incorporated discrimination on the ground of “impairment” which is defined to include intellectual disability, from the outset.

(7) See J. Elkins, “Disability and Disadvantage: Special Education in Australia – Past, Present and Future”, Melbourne Studies and Education 1985, page 163.

(8) Elkins, above, page 177.

(9) NSW: Anti-Discrimination Act, 1977; VIC: Equal Opportunity Act 1984; SA: Equal Opportunity Act, 1984; WA: Equal Opportunity Act 1984.

(10) Anti-Discrimination Act 1977, s.49Y and Equal Opportunity Act 1984, s.28.

(11) South Australia, Attorney-General’s Department – Report of a Working Party on Legislation to Assist the Intellectually Disabled, 1985.

(12) Report of the Working Party on Equal Opportunity Legislation for People with Disabilities, 1986.

(13) Anti-Discrimination Act, 1977, s.49Y.

(14) Leves v. Haines and Others (1986) EOC 92–167 a decision of the NSW Equal Opportunities Tribunal.

(15) Leves above, note 14, at pp. 76, 635.

(16) Leves at p. 76, 636.

(17) See a report by Caroline Van De Pol, Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday 16 December 1986, where a child was denied a full-time placement due to a lack of funds.

(18) Disciplinary matters are dealt with at first by the Director-General, but an appeal mechanism, to the Government and Related Employees Tribunal, exists.

(19) M. K. Maykovich, Medical Sociology, Alfred Publishing Co. Inc., California, 1980, pp. 180–181.