A unanimous Supreme Court today bolstered the rights of learning-disabled students in a ruling that requires public schools to offer special education programs that meet higher standards.
Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that it is not enough for school districts to get by with minimal instruction for special needs children. The school programs must be designed to let students make progress in light of their disabilities.
The court sided with parents of an autistic teen in Colorado who said their public school did not do enough to help their son make progress. They sought reimbursement for the cost of sending him to private school.
The case helps clarify the scope of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law that requires a "free and appropriate public education" for disabled students. Lower courts said even programs with minimal benefits can satisfy the law.
Disability advocacy groups argued that schools must offer more than the bare minimum of services to children with special needs.
Roberts said the law requires an educational program "reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child's circumstances."
"When all is said and done, a student offered an educational program providing merely more than de minimus progress from year to year can hardly be said to have been offered an education at all," Roberts said.
"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.
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