Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-827_0pm1.pdf
Page Number: 19

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

15 

Opinion of the Court 

sonably  calculated  to  enable  a  child  to  make  progress
appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances. 

C 

Endrew’s parents argue that the Act goes even further. 
In  their  view,  a  FAPE  is  “an  education  that  aims  to  pro-
vide  a  child  with  a  disability  opportunities  to  achieve
academic success, attain self-sufficiency, and contribute to
society  that  are  substantially  equal  to  the  opportunities 
afforded children without disabilities.”  Brief for Petitioner 
40. 

This standard is strikingly similar to the one the lower
courts  adopted  in  Rowley,  and  it  is  virtually  identical  to
the  formulation  advanced  by  Justice  Blackmun  in  his 
separate writing in that case.  See 458 U. S.,  at 185–186; 
id.,  at  211  (opinion  concurring  in  judgment)  (“[T]he  ques-
tion  is  whether  Amy’s  program  . . .  offered  her  an  oppor-
tunity to understand and participate in the classroom that
was substantially equal to that given her non-handicapped 
classmates”).  But the majority rejected any such standard
in clear terms.  Id., at 198 (“The requirement that States
provide  ‘equal’  educational  opportunities  would  . . .  seem 
to  present  an  entirely  unworkable  standard  requiring
impossible  measurements  and  comparisons”).    Mindful 
that Congress (despite several intervening amendments to 
the  IDEA)  has  not  materially  changed  the  statutory  defi-
nition of a FAPE since Rowley was decided, we decline to 
interpret  the  FAPE  provision  in  a  manner  so  plainly  at 
odds  with  the  Court’s  analysis  in  that  case.    Compare 
§1401(18) (1976 ed.) with §1401(9) (2012 ed.). 

D 

We will not attempt to elaborate on what “appropriate” 
progress  will  look  like  from  case  to  case.    It  is  in  the  na-
ture of the Act and the standard we adopt to resist such an
effort:  The  adequacy  of  a  given  IEP  turns  on  the  unique