Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-827_0pm1.pdf
Page Number: 13.0

Cite as:  580 U. S. ____ (2017) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

tation  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 empha-
sizes 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 educa-
tional  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 along-
side  our  statement  that  a  substantive  standard  was  “im-