The Potential for Empirically Based Estimates of Expected Progress for Students with Learning Disabilities: Legal and Conceptual Issues.

Abstract. The purpose of this article is to spark discussion regarding the value and feasibility of empirically based procedures for goal setting and evaluation of educational services. Recent legal decisions and policy debates point to the need for clearer criteria in decisions regarding appropriate educational services. Taking the case of learning disabilities as an example, it is argued further that recent theoretical advances and empirical data provide reason for optimism regarding the feasibility of establishing large-scale databases reflecting typical progress of students with recognizable cognitive profiles. Such databases could be used to make more objective decisions regarding appropriate programs and goals for individual students. In addition, they would allow for objective decisions regarding acceptable progress in specific programs. Possible roles for school psychologists and other professionals in empirically based decision making are discussed, and a call is made for discussions regarding the ad visability and feasibility of such an agenda. Services for children in special education are predicated on the assumption that these children, by virtue of their "atypical" learning and/or behavioral profiles, cannot succeed in the routine instructional environment of the general education classroom without specialized support. Since the implementation of PL 94- 142 in 1977, such students have been guaranteed a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in the least restrictive instructional environment consistent with their individual needs (Roberts & Mather, 1995). In defining the key concept of FAPE, the framers of the legislation intentionally avoided specific operational criteria, pointing instead to the importance of considering each individual child's needs in the context of an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP). Subsequent court cases have created some precedents regarding the minimal criteria for what constitutes an appropriate education (see below). However, the discussion in this article is based on the premise that decision making regarding the appropriateness of the services provided to specific children is still unnecessarily idiosyncratic. As a result, school districts remain unclear regarding their obligations, and parents are often confused regarding their children's rights. There is a need for clearer guidelines regarding appropriate education, and it is the intent of the present article to explore options for achieving this goal from both legal and conceptual perspectives. Defining the Issue Central to the notion of an appropriate education in past court decisions has been the issue of academic progress (Herr, 1999; Osborne, 1992). Simply put, an appropriate educational setting is one that leads to student learning. However, all children learn at different rates, and this variation must be taken into consideration. This issue is particularly pertinent to the case of children identified as needing special education, for whom extreme variation from typical learning patterns and/or rates is a central defining feature. Thus, court cases involving issues of FAPE often hinge on decisions regarding the adequacy of the academic progress made by the particular child in question. In this context, the possibility of developing clearer guidelines regarding how much progress to expect from a specific child is quite alluring. In this article, this issue is presented as one of developing empirically derived estimates of expected academic progress. Viewed abstractly, the default expectation for a given child is that she or he will progress one grade level on a standardized achievement test over the course of a school year. This is, in fact, an empirically derived estimate of the expected progress for the "average" child. However, by definition, children in special education do not fit this profile in at least one or more academic domains. Thus, the issue at hand becomes one of deciding to adjust expectations for an individual child. …