50 years after the birth of special education, some fear for its future under Trump

Fifty years ago, just after Thanksgiving of 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, the landmark law that created special education as it exists today, and guaranteed all children with disabilities the right to a " free appropriate public education ."

Yet, "rather than celebrating progress, we face a crisis," warned a recent letter to Congress, signed by hundreds of disability, civil rights and education groups.

That crisis, according to the letter, is "the dismantling of the very infrastructure Congress created to ensure children with disabilities could reach their full potential."

The Trump administration has fired, or tried to fire , many of the federal staff at the U.S. Department of Education who manage and enforce federal disability