Opinion ID: 546213
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Yardstick.

Text: 30 In storming these ramparts, appellants rely heavily on the particulars of Massachusetts' requirement that its special education programs assure the maximum possible development of handicapped students. See Mass.Gen.L. ch. 71B, Sec. 2; see also Stock, 467 N.E.2d at 453. This substantive standard is admittedly higher than the federal educational benefit floor, Burlington II, 736 F.2d at 789, and makes the formulation and evaluation of IEPs a more complicated task in the Commonwealth than elsewhere. Be that as it may, the parents' claim that their son's academic progress at Landmark necessarily demonstrated the inadequacy of Concord's IEPs will not wash: even under the Massachusetts standard, a program which maximizes a student's academic potential does not by that fact alone comprise the requisite adequate and appropriate education. In a nutshell, appellants' per se approach is far too simplistic. 3 31 Let us be perfectly clear. Congress indubitably desired effective results and demonstrable improvement for the Act's beneficiaries. Burlington II, 736 F.2d at 788. Hence, actual educational results are relevant to determining the efficacy of educators' policy choices. 4 See Defendant I, 898 F.2d at 1190. But, appellants confuse what is relevant with what is dispositive. The key to the conundrum is that, while academic potential is one factor to be considered, those who formulate IEPs must also consider what, if any, related services, 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1401(17), are required to address a student's needs. Irving Independent School Dist. v. Tatro, 468 U.S. 883, 889-90, 104 S.Ct. 3371, 3375, 82 L.Ed.2d 664 (1984); Roncker v. Walter, 700 F.2d 1058, 1063 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 864, 104 S.Ct. 196, 78 L.Ed.2d 171 (1983). 32 Among the related services which must be included as integral parts of an appropriate education are such development, corrective, and other supportive services (including ... psychological services ... and counseling services) as may be required to assist a handicapped child to benefit from special education. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1401(17); see also 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.13; Mass.Gen.L. ch. 71B, Sec. 1 (defining special needs to be addressed by special education). So long as the means for doing so fit within the statutory compendium, the Act require[s] that all of a child's special needs must be addressed in the educational plan. Burlington II, 736 F.2d at 788; see also 34 C.F.R. Pt. 300, App. C, Question 44 (the IEP for a handicapped child must include all of the specific special education and related services needed by the child--as defined by the child's current evaluation). Thus, purely academic progress--maximizing academic potential--is not the only indicia of educational benefit implicated either by the Act or by state law. 33 Moreover, appellants' argument misperceives the focus of an inquiry under 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(e)(2): the issue is not whether the IEP was prescient enough to achieve perfect academic results, but whether it was reasonably calculated to provide an appropriate education as defined in federal and state law. See Rowley, 458 U.S. at 207, 102 S.Ct. at 3051; Defendant I, 898 F.2d at 1191; Denton, 895 F.2d at 980; Colin K., 715 F.2d at 4. This concept has decretory significance in two respects. For one thing, actions of school systems cannot, as appellants would have it, be judged exclusively in hindsight. An IEP is a snapshot, not a retrospective. In striving for appropriateness, an IEP must take into account what was, and was not, objectively reasonable when the snapshot was taken, that is, at the time the IEP was promulgated. See 34 C.F.R. Pt. 300, App. C, Question 38 (IEP's annual goals describe what a handicapped child can reasonably be expected to accomplish); see also 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.349. For another thing, the alchemy of reasonable calculation necessarily involves choices among educational policies and theories--choices which courts, relatively speaking, are poorly equipped to make. Academic standards are matters peculiarly within the expertise of the [state] department [of education] and of local educational authorities.... Stock, 467 N.E.2d at 455. We think it well that courts have exhibited an understandable reluctance to overturn a state education agency's judgment calls in such delicate areas--at least where it can be shown that the IEP proposed by the school district is based upon an accepted, proven methodology. Lachman, 852 F.2d at 297. As Chief Justice (then Justice) Rehnquist has written: 34 The primary responsibility for formulating the education to be accorded a handicapped child, and for choosing the educational method most suitable to the child's needs, was left by the Act to state and local educational agencies in cooperation with the parents or guardians of the child.... In the face of such a clear statutory directive, it seems highly unlikely that Congress intended courts to overturn a State's choice of appropriate educational theories in a proceeding conducted pursuant to Sec. 1415(e)(2). 35 Rowley, 458 U.S. at 207-08, 102 S.Ct. at 3051. Beyond the broad questions of a student's general capabilities and whether an educational plan identifies and addresses his or her basic needs, courts should be loathe to intrude very far into interstitial details or to become embroiled in captious disputes as to the precise efficacy of different instructional programs. See Rowley, 458 U.S. at 202, 102 S.Ct. at 3048; Defendant I, 898 F.2d at 1191; Stock, 467 N.E.2d at 455. 36 There is one final basis on which we reject appellants' per se argument. An IEP must prescribe a pedagogical format in which, to the maximum extent appropriate, a handicapped student is educated with children who are not handicapped.... 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1412(5)(B); 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.550(b)(1). Congress' stated preference requires, in the eyes of both federal and state authorities, that education of the handicapped occur in the least restrictive environment. See 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.552(d); Mass.Gen.L. ch. 71B, Secs. 2, 3. Mainstreaming may not be ignored, even to fulfill substantive educational criteria. Just as the least restrictive environment guarantee cannot be applied to cure an otherwise inappropriate placement, similarly, a state standard cannot be invoked to release an educational agency from compliance with the mainstreaming provisions. Burlington II, 736 F.2d at 789 n. 19; see also Roncker, 700 F.2d at 1063 (a placement which may be considered better for academic reasons may not be appropriate because of the failure to provide for mainstreaming). 37 Correctly understood, the correlative requirements of educational benefit and least restrictive environment operate in tandem to create a continuum of educational possibilities. See Rowley, 458 U.S. at 181 n. 4, 102 S.Ct. at 3038 n. 4; Burlington II, 736 F.2d at 785 n. 12; Abrahamson, 701 F.2d at 229 n. 10. To determine a particular child's place on this continuum, the desirability of mainstreaming must be weighed in concert with the Act's mandate for educational improvement. See Lachman, 852 F.2d at 296. Assaying an appropriate educational plan, therefore, requires a balancing of the marginal benefits to be gained or lost on both sides of the maximum benefit/least restrictive fulcrum. Neither side is automatically entitled to extra ballast. 38 For these reasons, then, comparative academic progress, in and of itself, is not necessarily a valid proxy for, or determinative of, the degree to which an IEP was reasonably calculated to achieve the mandated level of educational benefit. 39