Moral Issues in Special Education : An Inquiry into the Basic Rights, Responsibilities, and Ideals

This book concerns basic issues of moral rights, responsibilities, and ideals relative to children with disabilities, their parents, educators, and lawmakers. Such issues underlie intense disputes that have been ongoing for decades since the first federal legislation regarding children with disabilities was enacted.

The book identifies and analyzes important yet insufficiently explored moral issues in k-12 special education. It aims to achieve a successful combination of experience and theory. The experience comes from the many years the author was an Illinois special education due process hearing officer (1987-2007). The theory comes from the even more years he taught and did scholarly work in the areas of moral, political, legal, and educational philosophy as a philosophy professor (1969-2012).

Each of the moral issues considered in the book figured importantly in one or more of the most significant disputes the author was called upon to adjudicate. Throughout the book he draws upon important concepts in moral, political, legal, and educational philosophy as conceptual resources. He considers these concepts invaluable for analyzing moral issues, especially when a person experiences discomfort caused by a sense that an issue is morally problematic but finds it hard to articulate the crux of the issue.

Throughout the book, however the author has tried hard to write in language that readers unfamiliar with the terminology and discourse style of philosophy can understand, and always to make it apparent why and how particular philosophical points bear upon important moral issues in k-12 special education.