The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, P.L. 94, 142, resulted in many benefits accruing to learners with handicaps and their families. However, there were disputes between and among people from various sectors of the educational community regarding the implementation of the Act. In the past the local teacher union bargaining process has been used as a means through which some disputes may be rectified.

Authors have suggested that disputes regarding the delivery of services to learners with handicaps might be resolved through teacher unions’ collective bargaining. The primary purpose of this study was to identify existing special education related language in “Pre” and "Post" P.L. 94-142 teacher union contracts. The secondary purpose was to examine the perceived needs of educational professionals for the development of formal school board policies and procedures on selected special education service delivery issues.

Three data collection procedures were developed. Data were analyzed, in part, by descriptive statistics. Analyses of quantitative and qualitative data obtained from three sources revealed the following three major findings:

The majority of "Pre" and "Post" P.L. 94-142 teacher union contracts contained virtually no specific special education related language. Second, all teachers’ perceptions surveyed indicated that the majority of educators perceived the need for selected special education policies as either “highly valuable" or “essential” regardless of teaching assignment (special or regular education) or employment site (urban or rural). Third, teachers consistently perceived a greater degree of need for local school boards to develop selected formal special education and service delivery policies and procedures then did special education program administrators.

Recommendations for further research included a series of national surveys of unionized educational professionals to determine if these individuals can provide 1) an explanation for the inconsistency identified here between practitioners perceived need for selected special education policies and procedures and the virtual absence of any special education related contractual language in the contracts analyzed in this study; 2) what specific effect, if any, the implementation of the Regular Education Initiative (REI) has had in unionized school districts; and 3) if there is any linkage between membership on the pre-bargaining and bargaining committees and the final content of the negotiated teacher union contract.