Children in special education.

Twenty-five years ago educational services for children with disabilities were frequently fragmented, underfunded, highly segregated, and unreliable. Public schools were often ill prepared and unwilling to provide special and necessary services to children with disabilities. Over the past two decades, efforts to provide an appropriate education for children with disabilities in America—through a series of state statutes, federal court cases, and federal laws—have led to the development of a large special education system to address the needs of these children. This journal issue focuses on the development of that special education system and examines its components, its strengths and weaknesses, and the areas in which improvement is needed. This Child Indicators article examines some of the key federal statistics on the provision of special education services for children with disabilities.