Abstract
The purpose of this article is to examine the free appropriate public education (FAPE) requirements of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The authors first briefly examine the definition of FAPE in the IDEA. Second, they delve into the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Board of Education v. Rowley and Endrew F. v. Douglas and how these decisions have affected the definition of FAPE. They next address the procedural, substantive, and implementation errors school district personnel often make when developing students’ special education programs. They offer suggestions on how faculty members can prepare their preservice teachers to understand and avoid these errors and develop educationally meaningful and legally correct special education programs that confer a FAPE.
Keywords
According to the U.S. Supreme Court in Smith v. Robinson (1984), the Education for All Handicapped Children Act 1 (EAHCA) was “a comprehensive scheme set up by Congress to aid the states in complying with their Constitutional obligations to provide public education to (students with disabilities).” The EAHCA required school personnel and parents collaborate to develop a student’s special education program that was individually designed to meet his or her unique needs and confer a free appropriate public education (FAPE).
The FAPE requirement has remained unchanged since the passage of EAHCA. Interpretations of FAPE by the federal courts, however, have evolved from the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Board of Education v. Rowley (hereinafter Rowley) in 1982 to its most recent ruling, Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District (hereinafter Endrew) in 2017. These interpretations of FAPE by the Supreme Court, especially in the recent Endrew decision, have important implications for special educators and also for teacher educators.
Our purpose in this article is to examine the FAPE requirements of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 20 U.S.C. § 1400) and judicial interpretations of FAPE from Rowley to Endrew. In doing so, we first briefly describe the definition of FAPE. Second, we examine the decisions in Rowley and Endrew and how these decisions have clarified the definition of FAPE. Third, we examine three types of FAPE errors, procedural, substantive, and implementation, which should be thoroughly addressed in teacher preparation programs. Finally, we offer suggestions for preparing preservice teachers who will be able to meet the FAPE requirements of the IDEA when they are employed as special education teachers and are collaboratively developing students’ Individualized Education Program (IEP).
The FAPE Requirement of the IDEA
In the early 1970s, Congress found that over one million students with disabilities were not receiving a public education at all and over four million students with disabilities were not receiving a public education appropriate for their needs. As Chief Justice Rehnquist noted in Rowley, the latter group of students with disabilities were often “left to fend for themselves in classrooms designed for education of their nonhandicapped peers” (Rowley, 1982, p. 191). As a result, the EAHCA of 1975 was passed, which required states to ensure the provision of FAPE to all students with disabilities to receive federal funding.
The central requirement of the EAHCA was the FAPE mandate. The means for developing a student’s FAPE was the IEP, which according to the U.S. Supreme Court was the “Modus Operandi” (Burlington v. Department of Education of Massachusetts, 1985) for providing a FAPE. According to the Senate Report (1975), to assure appropriate services were provided to a student, his or her IEP was to be developed collaboratively by school personnel and the student’s parents.
In the EAHCA, a FAPE was defined as special education and related services that
A. are provided at public expense, under public supervision and direction, and without charge, B. meet standards of the State educational agency, C. include an appropriate preschool, elementary, or secondary school education in the state involved, and D. are provided in conformity with the individualized education program. (IDEA, 20 U.S.C. § 1401 [a](18))
Shortly after the passage of the EAHCA, the question of what comprised a FAPE for students with disabilities began generating controversy and litigation. Although the free and the public parts of the FAPE definition were rarely disputed, what constituted an appropriate education was frequently the subject of debate. In 1981, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case from the Hendrick Hudson School District in Montrose, New York. The case, which was to be the first special education case to be heard by the Supreme Court, involved the question of “what is meant by the (EAHCA’s) requirement of a free appropriate public education” (Rowley, 1982, p. 180).
Board of Education v. Rowley (1982)
Amy Rowley, a kindergarten student in the Hendrick Hudson Central School District, was deaf and entitled to a FAPE under the EAHCA. Amy’s parents and the district developed an IEP for her; however, it did not include a sign language interpreter, as requested by Amy’s parents. Instead, the district agreed to a 3-week test period with an interpreter. Eventually, the district decided not to provide the services of an interpreter to Amy. The parents requested a due process hearing. The case went to the Federal District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and was eventually appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided to hear the case in November 1981.
On June 28, 1982, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion in which the High Court held that “We hold that the state satisfies the FAPE requirement by providing personalized instruction with sufficient support services to permit the child to benefit educationally from that instruction” (Rowley, 1982, pp. 203-204). The Court rejected the Rowley’s contention that states must maximize the potential of students with disabilities commensurate with the opportunity provided students without disabilities to provide a FAPE.
The Court developed a two-part test for courts to use when ruling on FAPE. “First, has the [school] complied with the procedures of the Act? And second, is the IEP developed through the Act’s procedures reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive educational benefits?” (Rowley, 1982, pp. 206-207). According to the Court, if these requirements were met, a school had complied with the FAPE requirements. Thus, rulings should (a) determine whether the procedural requirements of the IDEA have been met and (b) examine the IEP and student progress to determine whether the special education program was providing educational benefit (Yell, 2016). The Court also examined the role of state and federal courts in reviewing issues brought under the IDEA and noted courts should not “substitute their own notions of sound educational policy for those of the school authorities which they review (Rowley, 1982, p. 191).
Post-Rowley FAPE Cases
Since the Rowley decision, there have been many FAPE cases heard at all levels of courts below the Supreme Court. Because the U.S. Supreme Court has controlling authority over all lower courts, hearing officers and judges have applied the Rowley test in arriving at their rulings. The first part of the test, the assessment of whether a school district had followed the procedures of the law, has not proven to be a difficult decision. The second part of the Rowley test, however, was the IEP reasonably calculated to provide educational benefit, has proven to be more difficult determination for hearing officers and judges.
To answer this question, a court had to establish what constituted educational benefit for an individual student. Noting the Supreme Court did not need to directly address this part of the test in Rowley because Amy was academically able and did well in her general education class, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had to directly address the question of what constituted meaningful educational benefit for a 14-year-old student with severe mental and physical disabilities in Polk v. Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit 16 (1988).
The court found that
Congress did not write a blank check, neither did it anticipate that (school districts) would engage in the idle gesture of providing special education designed to confer only trivial benefit. . . . Congress intended to afford children with special needs an education that would confer meaningful benefit (Polk, p. 184).
The U.S. Courts of Appeals for Sixth Circuit (Deal v. Hamilton Board County Board of Education, 2014) similarly issued FAPE rulings, in which the courts applied the higher standard for determining educational benefit.
The U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Doe v. East Lyme Board of Education, 2015), Fourth Circuit (O.S. v. Fairfax County School Board, 2015), Seventh Circuit (Todd v. Duneland School Corporation, 2002), Eighth Circuit (K.E. v. Independent School District No. 15, 2011), Tenth Circuit (Endrew v. Douglas County School System, 2015), and Eleventh Circuit (JSK v. Hendry County School Board, 1991), however, used a lower standard of educational benefit to determine whether a school district has provided FAPE. For example, according to the Tenth Circuit court, the lower educational benefit standard was met when a school district provided a student with an education that was “merely more than de minimis” (Endrew v. Douglas County School System, 2015, p. 17). The different educational benefit standards used by the circuit courts made it more likely that the Supreme Court would eventually review a FAPE case. In September 2016, the High Court agreed to review the educational benefit issue in the case out of the tenth circuit, Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District (2015).
Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District (2017)
Endrew, called Drew, attended the Douglas County School District from preschool through fourth grade. When he was 2 years old, Drew was diagnosed with autism and later with attention deficit disorder. Drew had an IEP and attended special education classes during these years, but after a particularly difficult fourth-grade year, his parents withdrew him from the District and enrolled him in the Firefly Autism House, a school specializing in educating students with autism in Denver, Colorado. While at the Firefly Autism House he made academic and behavioral progress. Alleging the District had failed to provide Drew with a FAPE because his academic and behaviorally progress had stalled, his parents filed for a due process hearing and requested tuition reimbursement. The District prevailed at all levels up to and including the Tenth Circuit. In its opinion, the Tenth Circuit court noted an IEP met the IDEA’s FAPE requirement as long as it was calculated to confer “educational benefit that was merely . . . more than de minimis” (Endrew, p. 1338).
Drew’s parents appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The question they asked the Supreme Court to answer was the following: “What is the level of educational benefit school districts must confer on children with disabilities to provide them with a free appropriate public education guaranteed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act?” (SCOTUSblog, Petition for Writ of Certiorari, 2017).
The Supreme Court took the case, heard oral arguments, and then issued a ruling on March 22, 2017. In the briefs to the Court, the district’s position was the Rowley decision established a student’s IEP did not need to promise any particular level of benefit as long as the IEP was reasonably calculated to provide some benefit, as opposed to no benefit, so the Court should affirm the Tenth Circuit Court’s educational benefit standard of merely more than de minimis as providing a FAPE under the IDEA. On the contrary, Drew’s parents argued the de minimis standard should be overturned and the educational benefits extended to students with disabilities should aim to provide a student with opportunities to achieve academic success, attain self-sufficiency, and contribute to society that are substantially equal to the opportunities afforded students without disabilities.
Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion for a unanimous Supreme Court. The Court vacated and remanded the decision in the Endrew case back to the Tenth Circuit to decide in light of its new higher standard: “To meet its substantive obligations 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” (Endrew, 2017, p. 11).
Justice Roberts wrote,
this standard is markedly more demanding than the merely more than de minimis’ test applied by the Tenth Circuit . . . (and that) 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. (Endrew, 2017, p. 15)
As in Rowley, the Court rejected the parent’s higher standard, which was that the IDEA required schools to provide an educational program aimed to provide educational opportunities equal to those provided nondisabled students to meet the IDEA’s FAPE standard. Nonetheless, the Court clearly embraced an educational benefit standard higher than the de minimis standard.
In rejecting the de minimis standard and announcing the new higher substantive standard, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Endrew clearly is a decision largely favorable to students in special education. In addition, the Endrew ruling has important implications for teacher and administrator preparation in three particular areas: procedural, substantive, and implementation. We turn our discussion to these areas of importance in personnel preparation.
Procedural, Substantive, and Implementation Errors
We previously addressed the two-part Rowley test to determine whether a district had provided a FAPE. This test required that for a court to establish if a school district had offered FAPE, the court first had to determine whether a district had followed the procedures of the IDEA, and second whether the school district’s IEP had been reasonably calculated to provide educational benefit. In the Endrew decision in 2017, the Court elevated the second part of this test to determine whether a school district’s IEP was reasonably calculated to enable a student to make educational progress appropriate in light of the student’s circumstances. Districts need to ensure they are meeting the procedural and substantive requirements of the IDEA in the development of a student’s program of special education. There is also a third FAPE requirement school personnel must meet when they execute a student’s special education program, they must implement the IEP as developed.
Neither Rowley nor Endrew addressed a school’s failure to implement a student’s IEP. In the past few years, however, courts have been called on to rule in FAPE cases in which parents have brought litigation against schools, alleging the school district failed to either partially or fully implement their child’s IEP, thereby depriving him or her of a FAPE (Bateman, 2017; Zirkel & Bauer, 2016). To ensure special educators understand the requirements of FAPE, it is important personnel preparation programs prepare teachers with expertise in the areas of procedural, substantive, and implementation of a student’s IEP. We next examine these important elements of FAPE.
Procedural Errors
According to the procedural definition of FAPE (the first part of the Rowley test), there are certain required procedures to which district personnel must adhere when developing a student’s program of special education. Courts have developed a harmless-error approach to procedural errors made by school districts. Zirkel (2015) asserted that the harmless-error approach requires that before a hearing officer or judge finds that a procedural violation resulted in the denial of FAPE, the error must have resulted in educational loss to the student or the student’s parents being excluded from the special education process. This approach was later codified in the 2004 reauthorization of IDEA. According to IDEA, there were only three types of procedural errors that are so serious that if they are committed by school personnel they may result in a ruling that FAPE was denied: Procedural errors that (a) impeded a student’s right to a FAPE, (b) impeded the parents’ opportunity to participate in the decision-making process regarding the provision of a FAPE, and (c) caused a deprivation of educational benefits (IDEA, 20 U.S.C. § 1415[f](3)(E)(I-III)).
Procedural errors may violate FAPE when they negatively affect a student’s education or the student’s parents’ rights. Procedural violations include (a) failing to meaningfully involve a student’s parents in the development of their child’s IEP, (b) predetermining a student’s IEP or placement, (c) determining placement before programming, and (d) failing to field an appropriate IEP team (Yell, Katsiyannis, Ennis, & Losinski, 2013). It is crucial, therefore, that preservice and in-service special education teachers understand the importance of avoiding these procedural errors.
Substantive Errors
The Endrew test, which asks whether a student’s IEP is reasonably calculated to enable a student to make progress appropriate in light of his or her circumstances, elevated the second prong of the Rowley test. Endrew raised the bar for school districts and vanquished the de minimis test of educational benefit. In the Court’s opinion, Justice Roberts wrote, “A substantive standard not focused on student progress would do little to remedy the pervasive and tragic academic stagnation that prompted Congress to act” (Endrew, 2017, p. 11). Furthermore, Justice Roberts wrote “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.’” “The IDEA demands more” (Endrew, 2017, p. 14).
The clear implication for special education teachers is IEPs must be based on thorough and relevant assessments to determine a student’s unique academic and functional needs. As Justice Roberts noted, a student’s IEP “is constructed only after careful consideration of the child’s present levels of achievement, disability, and potential for growth” (Endrew, 2017, p. 12). In addition, IEPs should involve ambitious and challenging goals and objectives, because, according to the court, “every child should have a chance to meet challenging objectives” (Endrew, 2017, p. 14). A student’s IEP should also include and involve a reliable and valid means by which a student’s progress toward achieving his or her goals can be measured because a student’s “IEP must aim to enable the child to make progress” (Endrew, 2017, p. 11). If these conditions are met, it is likely that a student’s IEP will meet the substantive requirement of a FAPE.
Implementation Errors
According to Zirkel and Bauer (2016), a third type of FAPE error occurs when a school district fails to implement part of, or possibly the entire, IEP. Bateman (2017) noted this type of error can result in a denial of FAPE, even in cases in which there were no procedural or substantive errors committed by an IEP team. Although Congress has not addressed this issue, a few courts have examined school districts failure to implement.
Perhaps the leading failure to implement case was Van Duyn v. Baker School District 5J (2007). Christopher Van Duyn was a middle school student with autism. He was receiving special education services in a self-contained classroom. His parents and school-based personnel had written an IEP for the upcoming year. Christopher’s parents requested a due process hearing alleging that the District failed to implement his IEP, thus denying Christopher a FAPE.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit eventually heard the case for the Ninth Circuit. When the court addressed the denial of FAPE, it applied a material failure standard. According to the court, “a material failure to implement an IEP violates the IDEA (Van Duyn v. Baker School District 5J, 2007, p. 822).”
The District had provided only 5 hours of math instruction per week to Christopher although his IEP called for 8 to 10 hours. The court found this to be a material failure. According to the majority opinion,
We hold that a material failure to implement an IEP violates the IDEA. A material failure occurs when there is more than a minor discrepancy between the services a school provides to a disabled child and the services required by the child’s IEP. . . [W]e clarify that the materiality standard does not require that the child suffer demonstrable educational harm in order to prevail. (Van Duyn v. Baker School District 5J, 2007, p. 822)
One of the three judges in this case dissented with the majority’s ruling. In the dissenting opinion, the judge wrote,
Judges are not in a position to determine which parts of an agreed-upon IEP are or are not material. The IEP Team, consisting of experts, teachers, parents, and the student, is the entity equipped to determine the needs of a special education student, and the IEP represents this determination. Although judicial review of the content of an IEP is appropriate when the student or the student’s parents challenge the sufficiency of the IEP . . . such review is not appropriate where, as here, all parties have agreed that the content of the IEP provides FAPE. (Van Duyn v. Baker School District 5J, 2007, p. 827)
In a ruling submitted on August 2, 2016, the same court in M.C. v. Antelope Valley Union High School District reversed a lower court’s decision in favor of a school district and remanded the case back to the district court for reconsideration in light of the Ninth Circuit court’s ruling and the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Endrew. In this case, the majority opinion noted, “An IEP is a contract. It is signed by the child’s parents and the school’s representatives, and thus embodies a binding commitment” (M.C. v. Antelope Valley Union High School District, 2016, p. 11).
To be sure, there are similar, but not identical, approaches that courts have taken regarding school district’s failure to implement a student’s IEPs (e.g., Fisher v. Stafford Township School District, 2008; Houston Independent School District v. Bobby R., 2000; Melissa S. v. School District of Pittsburg, 2006; O.S. v. Fairfax County School Board, 2015). Nonetheless, most circuit courts have not ruled on a school district’s failure to implement. It is likely that in the future, more cases will be heard on this important issue. In the meantime, it is important that preservice teachers understand the importance of ensuring that all of a student’s teachers and related services staff are implementing the components of the students IEP with fidelity. As the dissenting judge in the Van Duyn case noted, “A school district’s failure to comply with the specific measures in an IEP to which it has assented is, by definition, a denial of FAPE, and, hence, a violation of the IDEA” (Van Duyn v. Baker School District 5J, 2007, p. 827).
Recommendations for Teacher Educators
In both the Rowley and Endrew cases, the Court defined a FAPE and how a school district could ensure eligible students with disabilities would be provided with a FAPE under the IDEA. A major difference between the case of Amy Rowley and the case of Endrew F. was that Amy Rowley was a child who was fully integrated into the general education setting, whereas Endrew F. was a child who spent the majority of his education in the special education setting. For Amy, it was reasonable to push her to succeed in the general education setting. For Drew, it was not reasonable to expect Drew to achieve passing grades on grade-level content. It was appropriate, therefore, to expect Drew to meet his own challenging goals based on his current level of academic and functional performance.
Now that the facts of the Endrew case are clear, we can examine why the case was such an important decision in regard to teacher training programs across the country. The biggest reason that Endrew is such a meaningful decision is that it will bring a change to the legal standards that federal court districts view the FAPE requirement of the IDEA. Prior to the Endrew decision, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 3rd and 6th circuits courts held a higher standard for FAPE than the Supreme Court required in the Rowley decision. In the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 8th, 10th, and 11th circuits, however, the courts were operating under a de minimis standard regarding FAPE. As you can see, before we address what needs to change in teacher preparation programs we must acknowledge there will be changes across the nation because of the Endrew decision. Special education administrators and teachers now have new standards they are required to meet; thus, it follows teacher educators may also need to make changes to the ways in which they prepare teachers. We next provide recommendations from the FAPE decisions (i.e., Rowley, Endrew, and the failure to implement cases) to teacher educators.
Recommendation 1: Prepare Special Education Teachers Who Are Legally Literate in Special Education
Because of their key role in implementing the requirements of the IDEA, it is important for teacher educators to prepare special education teachers who are legally literate in special education (Decker & Brady, 2015; Zirkel, 2015). There is no area in education that is subject to the number of legislative and regulatory changes, frequent developments in litigation, or the issuance of new policy directives as is special education. When teachers are not legally literate, it is more likely that may unknowingly violate their student’s rights (Schimmel & Militello, 2007). It is important, therefore, that preservice teachers receive a thorough grounding in special education law in coursework and a working knowledge of how to access current information on developments in special education law. As Decker and Brady (2015) have asserted, special education legal literacy should be prioritized because (a) students with disabilities are guaranteed a set of unique legal protections and entitlements, (b) special educators are woefully underprepared in special education law, (c) school districts frequently encounter pervasive legal challenges, and (d) many of these issues could be reduced with more effective training.
It is also extremely important that officials in state educational agencies and school districts ensure professional development activities include activities to keep practicing special education teachers abreast of legal developments. In addition, teachers should be encouraged to join professional organizations such as the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC; www.cec.sped.org) and the Teacher Education Division (TED) of the CEC (www.tedcec.org). Both organizations provide members with important updates on important special education legislative and litigation when it occurs.
Recommendation 2: Prepare General Educators in Procedures and Strategies for Teaching Students With Disabilities
Future general education teachers report an alarming lack of preparation in regard to effective special education strategies (Bateman & Cline, 2016). When general education teachers have little information on special education and students with disabilities, the results are that they are often unprepared in the methods and procedures on instructing students with different disabilities effectively. This is a significant problem because most students with disabilities spend the majority of their school day in general education classrooms (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). In addition, general education teachers without the requisite background may not understand the IEP process or the importance of faithfully implementing IEP requirements.
To remedy such problems, general education teacher preparation programs must include more information on students with disabilities and their rights and responsibilities in educating these students. General education teachers should leave their teacher preparation problems with the knowledge and skills that enable them to effectively differentiate instructional strategies for student with disabilities and implement accommodations and modifications to the general education that may be included in students’ IEPs.
Recommendation 3: Ensure Special Education Teachers Are Equipped With Strategies and Procedures to Involve a Student’s Parents in Programming Decisions
Involving students’ parents in special education decision making is an important requirement of the IDEA. This is because the law requires that all decisions concerning an eligible student’s special education programming will be made by the IEP team, which includes the student’s parents. The regulations to the IDEA note the effectiveness of educating children with disabilities depends on “strengthening the role and responsibility of parents and ensuring that families of such children have meaningful opportunities to participate in the education of their children at school and at home” (IDEA Regulations, 34 C.F.R. § 1400 [c](5)(B)). According to the U.S. Supreme Court, “the core of the (IDEA) . . . is the cooperative process that it establishes between parents and schools” (Schaffer v. Weast, 2005, p. 3). Consequently, school personnel must take steps to ensure that one or both parents are present in the meeting or are given the opportunity to participate in the IEP process.
None of the IDEA’s procedural rights are more vigorously protected by the courts than parental involvement (Bateman, 2017). Moreover, a student’s parents may be more likely to pursue legal options if they believe a school district is not meeting its FAPE obligations to their child. An effective way for school districts to preempt this problem is to encourage teachers, both general and special education, to make parental involvement a priority for students in special education. Emphasizing this topic in special and general education teacher preparation programs will help ensure this practice comes as second nature to the next generation of teachers.
Recommendation 4: Prepare Teachers Who Can, Administer, Understand, and Interpret Assessments That Are Relevant and Meaningful in Program Development
According to Bateman (2017), “the IEP must stand solidly and squarely on a foundation of current, accurate evaluations of the student’s level of performance in academic and functional areas” (p. 93). Because the assessment is the foundation of a student’s special education program as reflected in the present levels of academic achievement and functional performance statements, it is also the foundation of a student’s FAPE. Thus, personnel preparation programs must provide prospective special education teachers with a strong background in administering, interpreting, and understanding a wide variety of assessment procedures and strategies, including curriculum-based measurement, curriculum-based assessment, direct observations, interviews, work samples, functional behavioral assessments, and criterion-referenced tests, which will provide valuable information for instructional and behavioral planning and programming. It is important, therefore, that preservice teachers understand that a relevant assessment of a student’s needs is the first step in program development and that the assessment of a student is the basis for the rest of his or her IEP. Bateman (2017) aptly noted that to the extent that a student’s assessment is incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated, the student’s IEP will also be inadequate.
We believe preparing teachers to understand that a student’s assessment should serve as a baseline of a student’s performance and then how they may continually conduct formative assessments of a student’s progress during a school year will result in teachers who develop more effective and measurable programming for students with disabilities. This will certainly help ensure school districts develop IEPs that “are reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances” (Endrew, 2017, p. 3). The positive benefits of a student’s program can more readily be demonstrated if a school district can compare a student’s performance with his or her previous baseline performance in the assessment and present levels of academic achievement and functional performance statements.
Recommendation 5: Prepare Teachers Who Understand and Can Develop Measurable Annual Goals
Teachers’ should not develop IEP’s that incorporate “cookie cutter” goals for students in special education. The standard the Supreme Court set in Endrew will require more. Special education teachers will need to be able to develop measurable annual goals and then measure a student’s progress toward meeting those goals. The purpose of measurable annual goals is to help IEP team personnel determine whether a student is making educational progress and if the special education program is conferring academic and functional progress (Yell, Katsiyannis, Ennis, Losinski, & Christle, 2016). When goals are measurable, teachers and parents are able to monitor a student’s progress in a special education program and make educational adjustments when necessary (Bateman, 2017; Yell et al., 2016).
A U.S. federal district judge in Escambia County Board of Education v. Benton (2005) noted the importance of including measurable goals in student’s IEP. The case involved Jarred Benton, a 12-year-old student diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. In finding that the school district had failed to confer FAPE, the judge wrote that
. . . a meaningful, measurable goal gives Benton a target to work towards and his educators and parents a way to evaluate his progress . . . a program cannot possibly confer an educational benefit to Benton if his teachers and parents do not know where they are trying to take Benton and how they will know when he has arrived. (p. 1264)
Unfortunately, Bateman and Linden (2012) observed, “many if not most goals and objectives couldn’t be measured if one tried, and all too often no effort is made to actually assess the child’s progress toward the goal” (p. 63). An IEP team’s failure to write measurable goals can lead to a denial of FAPE and violation of the IDEA. Personnel preparation programs must ensure that the prospective special education teachers they prepare can (a) understand the purpose of developing measurable annual goals, (b) develop goals that are measurable, and (c) measure student’s progress toward these goals. A particularly useful way of preparing teachers to develop measurable annual goals and be able to measure student progress is by teaching them the procedures of curriculum-based measurement (Fuchs & Deno, 1991; Yell & Busch, 2012).
The Supreme Court in Endrew also addressed the importance of developing goals that are appropriately challenging for each individual student, in addition to being able to monitor student progress toward those goals on a regular basis to determine whether progress is being made. Thus, goals should be ambitious enough to challenge a student. Preservice teachers need to be prepared in writing effective goals to drive a student’s special education and related services that (a) address all areas of deficit, (b) are clear and measurable, and (c) are ambitious. According to the Court, a student’s IEP must enable him or her to make progress because “the essential function of an IEP is to set out a plan for pursuing academic and functional advancement” (Endrew, 2017, p. 11).
Recommendation 6: Prepare Teachers Who Can Collect, Understand, and React Correctly to Progress Monitoring Data
The Endrew case will raise the standards expected for monitoring of student progress. As a result of this case, there will be expectations teachers will monitor student behavior and make instructional changes when students are not progressing. There will be an increased expectation that school personnel and authorities “will 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 in light of his circumstances” (Endrew, 2017, p. 16).
According to the National Center on Intensive Interventions (2016), progress monitoring is used to (a) assess a student’s performance, (b) quantify his or her rate of improvement, (c) adjust the student’s instructional program to make it more effective and suited to the student’s needs, and (d) evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. Monitoring a student’s progress is essential to determining whether he or she is progressing toward achieving the annual goals and receiving FAPE. Without a method to monitor progress, teachers have no way of determining whether students are actually progressing toward the goals. A failure to clearly identify procedures for monitoring and reporting student progress could likely result in a denial of a FAPE. Furthermore, when teachers have evidence of student progress, it is more likely that when challenged, a district will be able to show the program was reasonably calculated to enable a student to make educational progress appropriate in light of the student’s circumstances.
Summary
The Endrew standard requires that school districts develop IEPs that are reasonably calculated to enable students to make progress appropriate in light of their circumstances. This standard will serve to encourage IEP teams to focus on (a) conducting relevant and complete assessments; (b) developing ambitious, challenging, and measurable goals; (c) adopting data-based progress monitoring systems; and (d) collect and react to the data collected. These requirements will certainly be challenging and require that teacher educators prepare general and special teachers to meet the standard of the Endrew decision. As Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the Endrew decision, “A substantive standard not focused on student progress would do little to remedy the pervasive and tragic academic stagnation that prompted Congress to act . . . The IDEA demands more” (Endrew, 2017, p. 11).
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.