The Unfinished Promise: 50 Years of IDEA and the Fight for Inclusion
The Unfinished Promise: 50 Years of IDEA and the Fight for Inclusion I'm assuming you, the reader, believes in that big American idea: that everyone should have an equal shot… But making that happen? That's always been the real work. And sometimes, the biggest fights to help give that equal shot didn't happen in big protests; they happened right over the heads of kids, in the battle to get them a classroom desk. This month, November 2025, the U.S. is marking a huge anniversary: 50 years of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). We need to celebrate it but also fight like heck to protect it. To understand why IDEA matters so much, we should look back. Before 1975, it was totally different. There was no guarantee that kids with disabilities could even go to public school. Think about that for a second. Millions of kids were legally shut out. They were institutionalized, kept home, or, if they were l...