Opinion ID: 524050
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Education is Broadly Defined

Text: 95 The courts have also made it clear that education for the severely handicapped under the Act is to be broadly defined. In Battle, 629 F.2d at 275, the court stated that under the Act, the concept of education is necessarily broad with respect to severely and profoundly handicapped children, and [w]here basic self help and social skills such as toilet training, dressing, feeding and communication are lacking, formal education begins at that point. See also Polk v. Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit 16, 853 F.2d 171, 176, 183 (3d Cir.1988) (the physical therapy itself may form the core of a severely disabled child's special education, and the fact that such a child may never achieve the goals set in a traditional classroom does not undermine the fact that his brand of education (training in basic life skills) is an essential part of [the Act's] mandate.); DeLeon v. Susquehanna Community School District, 747 F.2d 149, 153 (3d Cir.1984) ([t]he educational program of a handicapped child, particularly a severely and profoundly handicapped child ... is very different from that of a non-handicapped child and [t]he program may consist largely of 'related services' such as physical, occupational, or speech therapy); Abrahamson v. Hershman, 701 F.2d 223, 228 (1st Cir.1983) (Congress established a priority under the Act for the most severely retarded children, 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1412(3), for many of whom, certainly, education will not consist of classroom training but rather training in very basic skills); Kruelle, 642 F.2d at 693 (the concept of education is necessarily broad with respect to severely or profoundly retarded children); Campbell v. Talladega County Board of Education, 518 F.Supp. 47, 50 (N.D.Ala.1981) (the educational programs of children with severe handicaps consist of teaching them functional skills); North v. District of Columbia Board of Education, 471 F.Supp. 136, 141 (D.D.C.1979) (in ruling that a school district must provide residential placement for the severely handicapped plaintiff, the court noted that the educational, social, emotional, and medical problems were so intimately intertwined, it could not separate them); School District of the Menomonie Area v. Rachel W., 1983-1984 EHLR (Education for the Handicapped Law Report) DEC. 505:220, 227 (occupational and physical therapy are to be considered educational services because education for severely handicapped children must be viewed broadly to include related therapies). 96 In the instant case, the district court's conclusion that education must be measured by the acquirement of traditional cognitive skills has no basis whatsoever in the 14 years of case law since the passage of the Act. All other courts have consistently held that education under the Act encompasses a wide spectrum of training, and that for the severely handicapped it may include the most elemental of life skills.D. Proof of Benefit is Not Required 97 The district court relied heavily on Board of Education of Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 102 S.Ct. 3034, 73 L.Ed.2d 690 (1982), in concluding that as a matter of law a child is not entitled to a public education unless he or she can benefit from it. The district court, however, has misconstrued Rowley. In that case, the Supreme Court held that a deaf child, who was an above average student and was advancing from grade to grade in a regular public school classroom, and who was already receiving substantial specialized instruction and related services, was not entitled, in addition, to a full time sign-language interpreter, because she was already benefitting from the special education and services she was receiving. The Court held that the school district was not required to maximize her educational achievement. It stated, if personalized instruction is being provided with sufficient supportive services to permit the child to benefit from the instruction, ... the child is receiving a 'free appropriate public education' as defined by the Act, id. at 189, 102 S.Ct. at 3042, and that certainly the language of the statute contains no requirement ... that States maximize the potential of handicapped children. Id. at 189, 102 S.Ct. at 3042. 98 Rowley focused on the level of services and the quality of programs that a state must provide, not the criteria for access to those programs. Id. at 207, 102 S.Ct. at 2051. The Court's use of benefit in Rowley was a substantive limitation placed on the state's choice of an educational program; it was not a license for the state to exclude certain handicapped children. In ruling that a state was not required to provide the maximum benefit possible, the Court was not saying that there must be proof that a child will benefit before the state is obligated to provide any education at all. Indeed, the Court in Rowley explicitly acknowledged Congress' intent to ensure public education to all handicapped children without regard to the level of achievement that they might attain. 99 Congress expressly 'recognize[d] that in many instances the process of providing special education and related services to handicapped children is not guaranteed to produce any particular outcome.' S.Rep., at 11 [1975 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News at 1435]. Thus, the intent of the Act was more to open the door of public education to handicapped children on appropriate terms than to guarantee any particular level of education once inside. 100 Id. at 192, 102 S.Ct. at 3043 (emphasis added). 101 Rowley simply does not lend support to the district court's finding of a benefit/eligibility standard in the Act. As the Court explained, while the Act does not require a school to maximize a child's potential for learning, it does provide a basic floor of opportunity for the handicapped, consisting of access to specialized instruction and related services. Id. at 201, 102 S.Ct. at 3048 (emphasis added). Nowhere does the Court imply that such a floor contains a trap door for the severely handicapped. Indeed, Rowley explicitly states: [t]he Act requires special educational services for children 'regardless of the severity of their handicap,'  id. at 181 n. 5, 102 S.Ct. 3038 n. 5, and [t]he Act requires participating States to educate a wide spectrum of handicapped children, from the marginally hearing-impaired to the profoundly retarded and palsied. Id. at 202, 102 S.Ct. at 3048-49. See also Abrahamson, 701 F.2d at 227 (A school committee is required by the Act merely to ensure that the child be placed in a program that provides opportunity for some educational progress.) (emphasis added). This is a far cry from a requirement of proof that educational benefit will definitely result, before a child is entitled to receive that education. 102 Two administrative decisions subsequent to the Rowley case are also instructive. In Contra Costa County Consortium, 1985-1986 EHLR (Education for the Handicapped Law Report) DEC. 507:300, 301, the school district argued that a severely handicapped child with severe cognitive and motor delays (could not speak, voluntarily move his arms or legs, or communicate), was not eligible for special education services because he could not benefit from such a program. The hearing officer held that the child was entitled to the education: 103 [The Rowley ] court said the intent of the [Act] was to provide access to special education for handicapped children without regard to the level of achievement or success of the pupil. The court in Rowley further said that the [Act] provided the basic floor of opportunity for availability to and access to special education and related services. The notion that the [Act] intended to open the door to special education and not to limit its availability is found at 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1414(a)(1)(A). The Act is shown to require special education services for children regardless of the severity of their handicap. 104 Id. at 507:302 (emphasis added). In School District of the Menomonie Area v. Rachel W., 1983-1984 EHLR DEC. 505:220, 225, the hearing officer held that profoundly handicapped children may not be excluded from special education programming solely by virtue of their inability to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the [school] district some undefined quantum of educational benefit resulting from their exposure to such programming. The opinion went on to state: 105 [Rowley ] does not support the position that access to special education programming under the EHA is conditioned on the handicapped child's ability to receive an educational benefit from the programming. What is envisioned by the EHA is that the educational programming and related services chosen by the schools will be reasonably calculated to be of some educational benefit to the child. What is not envisioned is that the appropriate educational programming and related services will result in an educational benefit being conferred. Special education can no more ensure good results than can regular education. 106 Id. at 225 (emphasis in original). 107 And most recently, the Supreme Court, in Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 108 S.Ct. 592, 98 L.Ed.2d 686 (1988), has made it quite clear that it will not rewrite the language of the Act to include exceptions which are not there. The Court, relying on the plain language and legislative history of the Act, ruled that dangerous and disruptive disabled children were not excluded from the requirement of 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(e)(3), that a child shall remain in the then current educational placement pending any proceedings, unless the parents consent to a change. The Court rejected the argument that Congress could not possibly have meant to allow dangerous children to remain in the classroom. The analogous holding by the district court in the instant case--that Congress could not possibly have meant to legislate futility, i.e. to educate children who could not benefit from it--falls for the reasons stated in Honig. The Court concluded that the language and legislative history of the Act was unequivocal in its mandate to educate all handicapped children, with no exceptions. The statute means what it says, and the Court was not at liberty to engraft onto the statute an exception Congress chose not to create. Id. 108 S.Ct. at 605. As Justice Brennan stated: We think it clear ... that Congress very much meant to strip schools of the unilateral authority they had traditionally employed to exclude disabled students ... from school. Id. 108 S.Ct. at 604 (emphasis in original). Such a stricture applies with equal force to the case of Timothy W., where the school is attempting to employ its unilateral authority to exclude a disabled student that it deems uneducable. 108 The district court in the instant case, is, as far as we know, the only court in the 14 years subsequent to passage of the Act, to hold that a handicapped child was not entitled to a public education under the Act because he could not benefit from the education. This holding is contrary to the language of the Act, its legislative history, and the case law.