Special Education Administration

Special Education Administration: How it Evolved in Minnesota Paperback By Norena A. Hale (Author) Through the nonprofit, Minnesota Special Education Leaders Foundation, Norena Hale documents how special education evolved in Minnesota from the 1840s to the current time. She pieces together how the history of general and special education administration evolved through two separate paths before coming together into one education system in the 1960s. General education began in 1849 in Minnesota when common schools were created. At first, town superintendents and county superintendents were appointed to oversee thousands of one-room schools. When two or three one-room schoolhouses were combined into graded schools, one of the teachers was appointed as principal teacher. Not until the 1920s did these principal teachers evolve into elementary principals and by legislative action, some evolved into city superintendents. The education of children with disabilities took a different path. At first the families of these children were highly encouraged to place their children in state institutions. Physicians or ministers were in charge and little or no education was provided. At the same time charitable organizations, mostly Catholic, created orphanages and schools for some children. Public schools in Minnesota were first allowed to receive state aids for educating blind, deaf, and mentally subnormal children in 1915. Many of the first teachers were mothers. By the 1950s some were appointed program supervisors. A 1957 state law mandated public school education for those who were "educable" and then with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Title VI in 1966, federal dollars were used as incentives for expanding special education and for administrators to oversee those programs. By the 1960s thousands of schools were consolidated and the elementary and high schools principals, superintendents, and special education supervisors and directors were brought together into one type of school system. At first most of the special education directors were male; by 2014, most were female. Hale summarizes this history with timelines, charts, and lots of historic photographs.