A STUDY OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LEAST RESTRICTIVE ENVIRONMENT COMPONENT OF PUBLIC LAW 94-142, THE EDUCATION FOR ALL HANDICAPPED CHILDREN ACT OF 1975
- Author
- MARKS, ROBERT TIMOTHY
- Physical Description
- 213 pages
- Additional Creators
- Pennsylvania State University
Access Online
- Summary
- The purpose of this study was to analyze the Pennsylvania Department of Education's DEBE 1848 placement data to determine the extent to which the least restrictive environment (L. R. E.) component of Public Law 94-142, The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, was implemented within the state during the 1977-1978, 1978-1979, and 1979-1980 school years. The study also examined the variables identified by 17 intermediate unit (I. U.) directors of special education with regard to their influence on least restrictive environment placements within their respective I. U.'s. Finally, the differences in the effects of these variables were examined across I. U.'s. The unit of analysis was the I. U.
A telephone interview questionnaire was developed to investigate the variables affecting L. R. E. placements as perceived by the directors of special education within the 17 sampled I. U.'s.
The study accounted for the placement of children with the following handicaps: educable mentally retarded, trainable mentally retarded, severe and profoundly mentally retarded, multiple handicapped, learning disabled, physically handicapped, socially and emotionally disturbed, brain damaged, visually impaired, and hearing impaired.
The Chi-Square statistic was used to analyze distributions generated from DEBE 1848 data for the 1977-1978, 1978-1979, and 1979-1980 school years in order to investigate the extent to which the Law has been implemented in Pennsylvania. Spearman's rank-correlation coefficient was used to analyze the relationships of variables generated from DEBE 1848 data for the first two years of implementation.
Analysis of the extent to which the Law has been implemented revealed that: (1) from the first to third year of implementation there was a 7 percent increase in I. U. special education enrollment and that the majority of handicapped children were educated in special education placements, (2) from the first to second year of implementation there was a 400 percent increase in the number of I. U.'s that educated the majority of their handicapped children in regular classroom placements, (3) from the second to third year of implementation 55 percent of the state's I. U.'s decreased in the number of handicapped children educated in regular classroom placements. This decrease was significant at less than the .01 level; there was a 25 percent decrease in the number of I. U.'s that educated the majority of handicapped children in regular classroom placements; and there was a 17 percent decrease in I. U. special education enrollment, (4) there was a wide range of differences in implementation among state I. U.'s.
Analysis of variables that affected implementation of the Law revealed that the correlation between the percentage of change in the number of handicapped children educated in regular classroom placements among state I. U.'s and the percentage of change in special education enrollment among state I. U.'s was significant at less than the .01 level. Correlations that were not statistically significant revealed: (1) a definite but small negative correlation between program size and the percentage of mildly handicapped children educated in state I. U.'s, (2) a definite but small positive correlation between program size and the percentage of change in the number of handicapped children enrolled in I. U. programs, (3) neither program size nor the percentage of mildly handicapped children educated in I. U. programs were correlated to the percentage of change in the number of handicapped children educated in regular classroom placements among state I. U.'s.
The results of the telephone interview questionnaire demonstrated that: (1) similar variables affected implementation among sample I. U.'s, (2) the impact of reported variables within particular I. U.'s varied widely. - Other Subject(s)
- Dissertation Note
- D.ED. The Pennsylvania State University 1980.
- Note
- Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-10, Section: A, page: 4239.
- Part Of
- Dissertation Abstracts International
41-10A
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