Solving the Idea Puzzle: Building a Better Special Education Development Process through Endrew F. Notes 93 New York University Law Review 2018

About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

93 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1014 (2018)
Solving the Idea Puzzle: Building a Better Special Education Development Process through Endrew F.

handle is hein.journals/nylr93 and id is 1036 raw text is:

SOLVING THE IDEA PUZZLE:
BUILDING A BETTER SPECIAL

EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
THROUGH ENDREW F.

ALLISON ZIMMER*

When it was first enacted, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
had the potential to function both as a progressive statement on the rights and needs
of children with disabilities and as a concrete mechanism for promoting the educa-
tional progress of students with special needs-a population that had previously
been all but denied access to the classroom. Yet despite the Act's potential, over
forty years of court precedents interpreting the Act have resulted in a diluted,
unimaginative reality. The result is a system of inadequate education for students
who most need educational revitalization: (1) a continuum of alternative place-
ments provision that allows schools to provide students with only a bare outline of
one-size-fits-most, group-based programming; (2) a least restrictive environment
provision that does little to require that schools place students in public, integrated
settings; and (3) an educational benefit standard that is far too comfortable with
the status quo.

This Note begins by tracing the failures of the IDEA in the delivery of special
education today, characterized by the low academic achievement of students with
disabilities, high rates of incarceration and exclusionary discipline, and a lack of
imagination on the parts of districts and teachers. The Note then proceeds to
explain how educational inaction has been allowed to persist through a policy of
judicial deference to districts, with courts failing to demand bold action or creative
generation of new and innovative special education programs. Despite these fail-
ures, this Note argues that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Endrew F. v.
Douglas County School District RE-1 can be used to help advocates move courts
and districts out of the largely stagnant provision of special education services,
where schools continue to rely on the same ineffective and dated programs rather
than developing new methods to reach children with disabilities who continue to
struggle in school. This Note argues that the language of Endrew F. can be read to
promote a more rigorous, guided process of program development, helping advo-
cates evaluate a district's process and communicate failures to courts in a way that
authorizes courts to act to correct these failures. In moving beyond the status quo
and requiring that schools engage in constant growth, Endrew F. has the potential
to solve the puzzle of the IDEA's three primary provisions which, through court

* Copyright © 2018 by Allison Zimmer. J.D., 2018, New York University School of
Law; A.B., 2010, Brown University. Thank you to the editors of the New York University
Law Review, particularly Chloe Lewis and Bix Bettwy, for your excellent feedback and
attention to detail throughout the production process. I am deeply grateful to Professor
Adam Samaha for providing support and guidance on this Note from its early inception,
and to my mentors and friends at Advocates for Children of New York, the American Civil
Liberties Union, and Disability Rights Advocates for leading by example in providing
zealous, creative advocacy for students with disabilities in our nation's public schools. As
always, I am indebted to my family, friends, and to Joshua Occhiogrosso-Schwartz for
being early, eager readers and thought partners.

1014

Imaged with Permission of N.Y.U. Law Review