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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 15–827
_________________
ENDREW F., a minor, by and through his parents
and next friends, JOSEPH F. AND JENNIFER F., PETITIONER
v.
DOUGLAS COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT RE–1
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the tenth circuit
[March 22, 2017]
Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of
the Court.
Thirty-five years ago, this Court held that the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act establishes a
substantive right to a “free appropriate public education” for
certain children with disabilities.
Board of Ed. of Hendrick
Hudson Central School Dist., Westchester Cty. v.
Rowley,
458 U. S. 176 (1982) . We declined, however, to endorse any
one standard for determining “when handicapped children are
receiving sufficient educational benefits to satisfy the
requirements of the Act.”
Id., at 202. That “more difficult
problem” is before us today.
Ibid.
I
A
The Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act (IDEA or Act) offers States federal funds to assist in
educating children with disabilities. 84Stat. 175, as amended, 20
U. S. C. §1400
et seq.; see
Arlington
Central School Dist. Bd. of Ed. v.
Murphy, 548
U. S. 291, 295 (2006) . In exchange for the funds, a State
pledges to comply with a number of statutory conditions. Among
them, the State must provide a free appropriate public education—a
FAPE, for short—to all eligible children. §1412(a)(1).
A FAPE, as the Act defines it, includes both
“special education” and “related services.” §1401(9). “Special
education” is “specially designed instruction . . . to
meet the unique needs of a child with a disability”; “related
services” are the support services “required to assist a child
. . . to benefit from” that instruction. §§1401(26),
(29). A State covered by the IDEA must provide a disabled child
with such special education and related services “in conformity
with the [child’s] individualized education program,” or IEP.
§1401(9)(D).
The IEP is “the centerpiece of the statute’s
education delivery system for disabled children.”
Honig v.
Doe, 484 U. S. 305, 311 (1988) . A comprehensive plan
prepared by a child’s “IEP Team” (which includes teachers, school
officials, and the child’s parents), an IEP must be drafted in
compliance with a detailed set of procedures. §1414(d)(1)(B)
(internal quotation marks omitted). These procedures emphasize
collaboration among parents and educators and require careful
consideration of the child’s individual circumstances. §1414. The
IEP is the means by which special education and related services
are “tailored to the unique needs” of a particular child.
Rowley, 458 U. S., at 181.
The IDEA requires that every IEP include “a
statement of the child’s present levels of academic achievement and
functional performance,” describe “how the child’s disability
affects the child’s involvement and progress in the general
education curriculum,” and set out “measurable annual goals,
including academic and functional goals,” along with a “description
of how the child’s progresstoward meeting” those goals will be
gauged. §§1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(I)–(III). The IEP must also describe the
“special education and related services . . . that will
be provided” so that the child may “advance appropriately toward
attaining the annual goals” and, when possible, “be involved in and
make progress in the general education curriculum.”
§1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(IV).
Parents and educators often agree about what a
child’s IEP should contain. But not always. When disagreement
arises, parents may turn to dispute resolution procedures
established by the IDEA. The parties may resolve their differences
informally, through a “[p]reliminary meeting,” or, somewhat more
formally, through mediation. §§1415(e), (f )(1)(B)(i). If
these measures fail to produce accord, the parties may proceed to
what the Act calls a “due process hearing” before a state or local
educational agency. §§1415(f)(1)(A), (g). And at the conclusion of
the administrative process, the losing party may seek redress in
state or federal court. §1415(i)(2)(A).
B
This Court first addressed the FAPE
requirement in
Rowley.[
1] Plaintiff Amy Rowley was a first grader with impaired
hearing. Her school district offered an IEP under which Amy would
receive instruction in the regular classroom and spend time each
week with a special tutor and a speech therapist. The district
proposed that Amy’s classroom teacher speak into a wireless
transmitter and that Amy use an FM hearing aid designed to amplify
her teacher’s words; the district offered to supply both components
of this system. But Amy’s parents argued that the IEP should go
further and provide a sign-language interpreter in all of her
classes. Contending that the school district’s refusal to furnish
an interpreter denied Amy a FAPE, Amy’s parents initiated
administrative proceedings, then filed a lawsuit under the Act.
Rowley, 458 U. S., at 184–185.
The District Court agreed that Amy had been
denied a FAPE. The court acknowledged that Amy was making excellent
progress in school: She was “perform[ing] better than the average
child in her class” and “advancing easily from grade to grade.”
Id., at 185 (internal quotation marks omitted). At the same
time, Amy “under[stood] considerably less of what goes on in class
than she could if she were not deaf.”
Ibid. (internal
quotation marks omitted). Concluding that “it has been left
entirely to the courts and the hearings officers to give content to
the requirement of an ‘appropriate education,’ ” 483
F. Supp. 528, 533 (SDNY 1980), the District Court ruled that
Amy’s education was not “appropriate” unless it provided her “an
opportunity to achieve [her] full potential commensurate with the
opportunity provided to other children
.”
Rowley, 458
U. S., at 185–186 (internal quotation marks omitted). The
Second Circuit agreed with this analysis andaffirmed.
In this Court, the parties advanced starkly
different understandings of the FAPE requirement. Amy’s parents
defended the approach of the lower courts, arguing that the school
district was required to provide instruction and services that
would provide Amy an “equal educational opportunity” relative to
children without disabilities.
Id., at 198 (internal
quotation marks omitted). The school district, for its part,
contended that the IDEA “did not create substantive individual
rights”; the FAPE provision was instead merely aspirational. Brief
for Petitioners in
Rowley, O. T. 1981, No. 80–1002, pp. 28,
41.
Neither position carried the day. On the one
hand, this Court rejected the view that the IDEA gives “courts
carte blanche to impose upon the States whatever burden
their various judgments indicate should be imposed.”
Rowley,
458 U. S., at 190, n. 11. After all, the statutory phrase
“free appropriate public education” was expressly defined in the
Act, even if the definition “tend[ed] toward the cryptic rather
than the comprehensive.”
Id., at 188. This Court went on to
reject the “equal opportunity” standard adopted by the lower
courts, concluding that “free appropriate public education” was a
phrase “too complex to be captured by the word ‘equal’ whether one
is speaking of opportunities or services.”
Id., at 199. The
Court also viewed the standard as “entirely unworkable,” apt to
require “impossible measurements and comparisons” that courts were
ill suited to make.
Id., at 198.
On the other hand, the Court also rejected the
school district’s argument that the FAPE requirement was actually
no requirement at all.
Id., at 200. Instead, the Court
carefully charted a middle path. Even though “Congress was rather
sketchy in establishing substantive requirements” under the Act,
id., at 206, the Court nonetheless made clear that the Act
guarantees a substantively adequate program of education to all
eligible children,
id., at 200–202, 207; see
id., at
193, n. 15 (describing the “substantive standard
. . . implicit in the Act”). We explained that this
requirement is satisfied, and a child has received a FAPE, if the
child’s IEP sets out an educational program that is “reasonably
calculated to enable the child to receive educational benefits.”
Id., at 207. For children receiving instruction in the
regular classroom, this would generally require an IEP “reasonably
calculated to enable the child to achieve passing marks and advance
from grade to grade.”
Id., at 204; see also
id., at
203, n. 25.
In view of Amy Rowley’s excellent progress and
the “substantial” suite of specialized instruction and services
offered in her IEP, we concluded that her program satisfied the
FAPE requirement.
Id., at 202. But we went no further.
Instead, we expressly “confine[d] our analysis” to the facts of the
case before us.
Ibid. Observing that the Act requires States
to “educate a wide spectrum” of children with disabilities and that
“the benefits obtainable by children at one end of the spectrum
will differ dramatically from those obtainable by children at the
other end,” we declined “to establish any one test for determining
the adequacy of educational benefits conferred upon all children
covered by the Act.”
Ibid.
C
Petitioner Endrew F. was diagnosed with autism
at age two. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder generally
marked by impaired social and communicative skills, “engagement in
repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to
environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual
responses to sensory experiences.” 34 CFR §300.8(c)(1)(i) (2016);
see Brief for Petitioner 8. A child with autism qualifies as a
“[c]hild with a disability” under the IDEA, and Colorado (where
Endrew resides) accepts IDEA funding. §1401(3)(A). Endrew is
therefore entitled to the benefits of the Act, including a FAPE
provided by the State.
Endrew attended school in respondent Douglas
County School District from preschool through fourth grade. Each
year, his IEP Team drafted an IEP addressed to his educational and
functional needs. By Endrew’s fourth grade year, however, his
parents had become dissatisfied with his progress. Although Endrew
displayed a number of strengths—his teachers described him as a
humorous child with a “sweet disposition” who “show[ed]
concern[ ] for friends”—he still “exhibited multiple behaviors
that inhibited his ability to access learning in the classroom.”
Supp. App. 182a; 798 F. 3d 1329, 1336 (CA10 2015). Endrew
would scream in class, climb over furniture and other students, and
occasionally run away from school.
Id., at 1336. He was
afflicted by severe fears of commonplace things like flies, spills,
and public restrooms. As Endrew’s parents saw it, his academic and
functional progress had essentially stalled: Endrew’s IEPs largely
carried over the same basic goals and objectives from one year to
the next, indicating that he was failing to make meaningful
progress toward his aims. His parents believed that only a thorough
overhaul of the school district’s approach to Endrew’s behavioral
problems could reverse the trend. But in April 2010, the school
district presented Endrew’s parents with a proposed fifth grade IEP
that was, in their view, pretty much the same as his past ones. So
his parents removed Endrew from public school and enrolled him at
Firefly Autism House, a private school that specializes in
educating children with autism.
Endrew did much better at Firefly. The school
developed a “behavioral intervention plan” that identified Endrew’s
most problematic behaviors and set out particular strategies for
addressing them. See Supp. App. 198a–201a. Firefly also added heft
to Endrew’s academic goals. Within months, Endrew’s behavior
improved significantly, permitting him to make a degree of academic
progress that had eluded him in public school.
In November 2010, some six months after Endrew
started classes at Firefly, his parents again met with
representatives of the Douglas County School District. The district
presented a new IEP. Endrew’s parents considered the IEP no more
adequate than the one proposed in April, and rejected it. They were
particularly concerned that the stated plan for addressing Endrew’s
behavior did not differ meaningfully from the plan in his fourth
grade IEP, despite the fact that his experience at Firefly
suggested that he would benefit from a different approach.
In February 2012, Endrew’s parents filed a
complaint with the Colorado Department of Education seeking
reimbursement for Endrew’s tuition at Firefly. To qualify for such
relief, they were required to show that the school district had not
provided Endrew a FAPE in a timely manner prior to his enrollment
at the private school. See §1412(a)(10)(C)(ii). Endrew’s parents
contended that the final IEP proposed by the school district was
not “reason-ably calculated to enable [Endrew] to receive
educational benefits” and that Endrew had therefore been denied a
FAPE.
Rowley, 458 U. S., at 207. An Administrative Law
Judge (ALJ) disagreed and denied relief.
Endrew’s parents sought review in Federal
District Court. Giving “due weight” to the decision of the ALJ, the
District Court affirmed. 2014 WL 4548439, *5 (D Colo., Sept. 15,
2014) (quoting
Rowley, 458 U. S., at 206). The court
acknowledged that Endrew’s performance under past IEPs “did not
reveal immense educational growth.” 2014 WL 4548439, at *9. But it
concluded that annual modifications to Endrew’s IEP objectives were
“sufficient to show a pattern of, at the least, minimal progress.”
Ibid. Because Endrew’s previous IEPs had enabled him to make
this sort of progress, the court reasoned, his latest, similar IEP
was reasonably calculated to do the same thing. In the court’s
view, that was all
Rowley demanded. 2014 WL 4548439, at
*9.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed. The Court of Appeals
recited language from
Rowley stating that the instruction
and services furnished to children with disabilities must be
calculated to confer “
some educational benefit.” 798
F. 3d, at 1338 (quoting
Rowley, 458 U. S., at 200;
emphasis added by Tenth Circuit). The court noted that it had long
interpreted this language to mean that a child’s IEP is adequate as
long as it is calculated to confer an “educational benefit [that
is] merely . . . more than
de minimis.” 798
F. 3d, at 1338 (internal quotation marks omitted). Applying
this standard, the Tenth Circuit held that Endrew’s IEP had been
“reasonably calculated to enable [him] to make
some
progress.”
Id., at 1342 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Accordingly, he had not been denied a FAPE.
We granted certiorari. 579 U. S. ___
(2016).
II
A
The Court in
Rowley declined “to
establish any one test for determining the adequacy of educational
benefits conferred upon all children covered by the Act.” 458
U. S., at 202. The school district, however, contends that
Rowley nonetheless established that “an IEP need not promise
any particular
level of benefit,” so long as it is
“ ‘ reasonably calculated’ to provide
some
benefit, as opposed to
none.” Brief for Respondent 15.
The district relies on several passages from
Rowley to make its case. It points to our observation that
“any substantive standard prescribing the level of education to be
accorded” children with disabilities was “[n]oticeably absent from
the language of the statute.” 458 U. S., at 189; see Brief for
Respondent 14. The district also emphasizes the Court’s statement
that the Act requires States to provide access to instruction
“sufficient to confer
some educational benefit,” reasoning
that any benefit, however minimal, satisfies this mandate. Brief
for Respondent 15 (quoting
Rowley, 458 U. S., at 200).
Finally, the district urges that the Court conclusively adopted a
“some educational benefit” standard when it wrote that “the intent
of the Act was more to open the door of public education to
handicapped children . . . than to guarantee any
particular level of education.”
Id., at 192; see Brief for
Respond-ent 14.
These statements in isolation do support the
school district’s argument. But the district makes too much of
them. Our statement that the face of the IDEA imposed no explicit
substantive standard must be evaluated alongside our statement that
a substantive standard was “implicit in the Act
.”
Rowley, 458 U. S., at 193, n. 15. Similarly, we
find little significance in the Court’s language concerning the
requirement that States provide instruction calculated to “confer
some educational benefit.”
Id., at 200. The Court had no
need to say anything more particular, since the case before it
involved a child whose progress plainly demonstrated that her IEP
was designed to deliver more than adequate educational benefits.
See
id., at 202, 209–210. The Court’s principal concern was
to correct what it viewed as the surprising rulings below: that the
IDEA effectively empowers judges to elaborate a federal common law
of public education, and that a child performing
better than
most in her class had been denied a FAPE. The Court was not
concerned with precisely articulating a governing standard for
closer cases. See
id., at 202. And the statement that the
Act did not “guarantee any particular level of education” simply
reflects the unobjectionable proposition that the IDEA cannot and
does not promise “any particular [educational] outcome.”
Id., at 192 (internal quotation marks omitted). No law could
do that—for any child.
More important, the school district’s reading of
these isolated statements runs headlong into several points on
which
Rowley is crystal clear. For instance—just after
saying that the Act requires instruction that is “sufficient to
confer some educational benefit”—we noted that “[t]he determination
of when handicapped children are receiving
sufficient
educational benefits . . . presents a . . .
difficult problem.”
Id., at 200, 202 (emphasis added). And
then we expressly declined “to establish any one test for
determining the
adequacy of educational benefits” under the
Act.
Id., at 202 (emphasis added). It would not have been
“difficult” for us to say when educational benefits are sufficient
if we had just said that
any educational benefit was enough.
And it would have been strange to refuse to set out a test for the
adequacy of educational benefits if we had just done exactly that.
We cannot accept the school district’s reading of
Rowley.
B
While
Rowley declined to articulate an
overarching standard to evaluate the adequacy of the education
provided under the Act, the decision and the statutory language
point to a general approach: To meet its substantive obligation
under the IDEA, a school must offer an IEP reasonably calculated to
enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s
circumstances.
The “reasonably calculated” qualification
reflects a recognition that crafting an appropriate program of
education requires a prospective judgment by school officials.
Id., at 207. The Act contemplates that this fact-intensive
exercise will be informed not only by the expertise of school
officials, but also by the input of the child’s parents or
guardians.
Id., at 208–209. Any review of an IEP must
appreciate that the question is whether the IEP is
reasonable, not whether the court regards it as ideal.
Id., at 206–207.
The IEP must aim to enable the child to make
progress. After all, the essential function of an IEP is to set out
a plan for pursuing academic and functional advancement. See
§§1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(I)–(IV). This reflects the broad purpose of the
IDEA, an “ambitious” piece of legislation enacted “in response to
Congress’ perception that a majority of handicapped children in the
United States ‘were either totally excluded from schools or [were]
sitting idly in regular classrooms awaiting the time when they were
old enough to “drop out.” ’ ”
Rowley, 458
U. S., at 179 (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 94–332, p. 2
(1975)). A substantive standard not focused on student progress
would do little to remedy the pervasive and tragic academic
stagnation that prompted Congress to act.
That the progress contemplated by the IEP must
be appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances should come as
no surprise. A focus on the particular child is at the core of the
IDEA. The instruction offered must be “
specially designed”
to meet a child’s “
unique needs” through an
“[
i]
ndividualized education program.” §§1401(29),
(14) (emphasis added). An IEP is not a form document. It is
constructed only after careful consideration of the child’s present
levels of achievement, disability, and potential for growth.
§§1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(I)–(IV), (d)(3)(A)(i)–(iv). As we observed in
Rowley, the IDEA “requires participating States to educate a
wide spectrum of handicapped children,” and “the benefits
obtainable by children at one end of the spectrum will differ
dramatically from those obtainable by children at the other end,
with infinite variations in between.” 458 U. S., at 202.
Rowley sheds light on what appropriate
progress will look like in many cases. There, the Court recognized
that the IDEA requires that children with disabilities receive
education in the regular classroom “whenever possible
.”
Ibid. (citing §1412(a)(5)). When this preference is met,
“the system itself monitors the educational progress of the child.”
Id., at 202–203. “Regular examinations are administered,
grades are awarded, and yearly advancement to higher grade levels
is permitted for those children who attain an adequate knowledge of
the course material.”
Id., at 203. Progress through this
system is what our society generally means by an “education.” And
access to an “education” is what the IDEA promises.
Ibid.
Accordingly, for a child fully integrated in the regular classroom,
an IEP typically should, as
Rowley put it, be “reasonably
calculated to enable the child to achieve passing marks and advance
from grade to grade.”
Id., at 203–204.
This guidance is grounded in the statutory
definition of a FAPE. One of the components of a FAPE is “special
education,” defined as “specially designed instruction
. . . to meet the unique needs of a child with a
disability.” §§1401(9), (29). In determining what it means to “meet
the unique needs” of a child with a disability, the provisions
governing the IEP development process are a natural source of
guidance: It is through the IEP that “[t]he ‘free appropriate
public education’ required by the Act is tailored to the unique
needs of” a particular child.
Id.,at 181.
The IEP provisions reflect
Rowley’s
expectation that, for most children, a FAPE will involve
integration in the reg-ular classroom and individualized special
education calculated to achieve advancement from grade to grade.
Every IEP begins by describing a child’s present level of
achieve-ment, including explaining “how the child’s disability
affects the child’s involvement and progress in the general
education curriculum.” §1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(I)(aa). It then sets out
“a statement of measurable annual goals . . . designed to
. . . enable the child to be involved in and make
progress in the general education curriculum,” along with a
description of specialized instruction and services that the child
will receive. §§1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(II), (IV). The instruction and
services must likewise be provided with an eye toward “progress in
the general education curriculum.” §1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(IV)(bb).
Similar IEP requirements have been in place since the time the
States began accepting funding under the IDEA.
The school district protests that these
provisions impose only procedural requirements—a checklist of items
the IEP must address—not a substantive standard enforce-able in
court. Tr. of Oral Arg. 50–51. But the procedures are there for a
reason, and their focus provides insight into what it means, for
purposes of the FAPE definition, to “meet the unique needs” of a
child with a disability. §§1401(9), (29). When a child is fully
integrated in the regular classroom, as the Act prefers, what that
typically means is providing a level of instruction
reasonablycalculated to permit advancement through the general
curriculum.[
2]
Rowley had no need to provide concrete
guidance with respect to a child who is not fully integrated in the
regular classroom and not able to achieve on grade level. That case
concerned a young girl who was progressing smoothly through the
regular curriculum. If that is not a reason-able prospect for a
child, his IEP need not aim for grade-level advancement. But his
educational program must be appropriately ambitious in light of his
circumstances, just as advancement from grade to grade is
appropriately ambitious for most children in the regular classroom.
The goals may differ, but every child should have the chance to
meet challenging objectives.
Of course this describes a general standard, not
a formula. But whatever else can be said about it, this standard is
markedly more demanding than the “merely more than
de
minimis” test applied by the Tenth Circuit. It cannot be the
case that the Act typically aims for grade-level advancement for
children with disabilities who can be educated in the regular
classroom, but is satisfiedwith barely more than
de minimis
progress for those who cannot.
When all is said and done, a student offered an
educational program providing “merely more than
de minimis”
progress from year to year can hardly be said to have been offered
an education at all. For children with disabilities, receiving
instruction that aims so low would be tantamount to “sitting idly
. . . awaiting the time when they were old enough to
‘drop out.’ ”
Rowley, 458 U. S., at 179 (some
internal quotation marks omitted). The 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.
C
Endrew’s parents argue that the Act goes even
further. In their view, a FAPE is “an education that aims to
provide a child with a disability opportunities to achieve academic
success, attain self-sufficiency, and contribute to society that
are substantially equal to the opportunities afforded children
without disabilities.” Brief for Petitioner 40.
This standard is strikingly similar to the one
the lower courts adopted in
Rowley, and it is virtually
identical to the formulation advanced by Justice Blackmun in his
separate writing in that case. See 458 U. S., at 185–186;
id., at 211 (opinion concurring in judgment) (“[T]he
question is whether Amy’s program . . . offered her an
opportunity to understand and participate in the classroom that was
substantially equal to that given her non-handicapped classmates”).
But the majority rejected any such standard in clear terms.
Id., at 198 (“The requirement that States provide ‘equal’
educational opportunities would . . . seem to present an
entirely unworkable standard requiring impossible measurements and
comparisons”). Mindful that Congress (despite several intervening
amendments to the IDEA) has not materially changed the statutory
definition of a FAPE since
Rowley was decided, we decline to
interpret the FAPE provision in a manner so plainly at odds with
the Court’s analysis in that case. Compare §1401(18) (1976 ed.)
with §1401(9) (2012 ed.).
D
We will not attempt to elaborate on what
“appropriate” progress will look like from case to case. It is in
the nature of the Act and the standard we adopt to resist such an
effort: The adequacy of a given IEP turns on the unique
circumstances of the child for whom it was created. This absence of
a bright-line rule, however, should not be mistaken for “an
invitation to the courts to substitute their own notions of sound
educational policy for those of the school authorities which they
review.”
Rowley, 458 U. S., at 206.
At the same time, deference is based on the
application of expertise and the exercise of judgment by school
authorities. The Act vests these officials with responsibility for
decisions of critical importance to the life of a disabled child.
The nature of the IEP process, from the initial consultation
through state administrative proceedings, ensures that parents and
school representatives will fully air their respective opinions on
the degree of progress a child’s IEP should pursue. See §§1414,
1415;
id., at 208–209. By the time any dispute reaches
court, school authorities will have had a complete opportunity to
bring their expertise and judgment to bear on areas of
disagreement. A reviewing court may fairly expect those authorities
to be able to offer a cogent and responsive explanation for their
decisions that shows the IEP is reasonably calculated to enable the
child to make progress appropriate in light of his
circumstances.
The judgment of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
