[rescue_box color=”blue” text_align=”left” width=”100%” float=”none”]Article by Wrightslaw[/rescue_box]

What a great day! On March 22, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court issued another unanimous ruling in favor of children with special needs and their parents.

The Court emphasized that full inclusion is the primary standard, with the “child progressing smoothly through the regular curriculum.”

The Court held that “merely more than de minimis” progress is not enough. Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “…IDEA demands more. It requires an educational program reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances.”

If a child is not fully included, school officials must look at the child’s unique needs before developing an IEP that is “pursuing academic and functional advancement.”

The decision in Endrew F. is a great victory for those who advocate children being fully integrated in regular education classrooms.

Per the statute – unique needs = specialized instruction.

Read Pete Wright’s analysis of the Supreme Court decision in Endrew v. Douglas County.

Return to Data Collection

What do you know about your child’s unique needs? You will get information about your child’s unique needs from test data that measures your child’s strengths, weaknesses, and educational needs.

How do you measure the educational benefit? You look at changes in the test data over time.

  • Are your child’s standard scores, percentile ranks going up over time or going down?
  • Is your child regressing? Is he being damaged by an inappropriate educational program?
  • Is your child making progress and showing educational benefit?

We hope that the decision in Endrew F. will lead to a return to data collection and analysis of the data over time, instead of relying on subjective perceptions about a child’s progress.

Schools used to rely on data and objective measures of progress, before the 1991 decision in Shannon Carter’s case. After Carter, school districts stopped using objective tests to measure progress and embraced subjective “teacher observations.”

This is a great day! In Endrew F., the Court focused on educational progress, growth, and developing IEPs to meet the child’s unique needs, while also re-emphasizing the goal of integration or inclusion in regular education.

Congratulations to Endrew F’s parents and their attorney, Jack Robinson, Esq. of Spies, Powers & Robinson, Denver, CO. This was such a long battle. You lost at every level, until the Supreme Court agreed to hear your case, then ruled in your favor.