Ruling: Kids with special needs entitled to more help

WASHINGTON — A unanimous Supreme Court on Wednesday bolstered the rights of millions of learningdisabled students in a ruling that requires public schools to offer special education programs that meet higher standards.

Chief Justice John Roberts said it is not enough for school districts to get by with minimal instruction for special-needs children.

The Supreme 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 $70,000 annual cost of sending him to private school.

The Colorado Department of Education had denied the parents’ claim, saying the district had met the minimum standards required under the law. The federal appeals court in Denver upheld that decision.

The case helps clarify the scope of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law that requires a “free and appropriate public education” for disabled students.

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.” He did not elaborate on what that progress should look like, saying it depends on the “unique circumstances” of each child. He added that there should also be deference to school officials.

The ruling does not go as far as the parents wanted. They had argued that educational programs for disabled students should meet goals “substantially equal” to those for children without disabilities. Roberts rejected that standard, saying it was “entirely unworkable.”

School officials had cautioned that imposing higher standards could be too costly for some cash-strapped districts. But Francisco Negron, general counsel of the National School Boards Association, said the court had issued a “measured” decision. He said it would lead to schools more carefully tracking the progress of special-needs students, but he praised the court for saying it would defer to the judgment of educational officials.