Appropriate Education and Rowley

This is the publisher's version, also found at http://sped.org/Abstract: The Education of the Handicapped Act requires state and local educational agencies to provide a free, appropriate public education to all children with disabilities. The meaning of "appropriate" was left quite open-ended by Congress, which predicated "appropriateness" on compliance with state standards and a child's IEP. The Supreme Court's first special education case, Board v. Rowley (1982), clarified the meaning of "appropriate"—as did the Court's later decision, Irving I.S.D. v. Tatro (1984J—but raised questions about just how far the EHA requires schools to go in educating a child. This article analyzes Rowley's meaning for "appropriate" education and justifies the Tightness of that decision in terms of its impact on the education of the child and the integration of children who have disabilities with children who do not

Procedural Due Process: The Two-edged Sword That the Untrained Should Not Unsheath

The issue of procedural due process is examined in this article by first analyzing the associated legal requirements of P.L. 94-142 and then identifying the "triggers" which professionals and parents can use to initiate a due process hearing. Problems and unresolved issues associated with interpreting and applying due process safeguards in terms of initiating, conducting, and governing the hearing and hearing officer are discussed. The concluding section of the article identifies specific training implications and creeds of due process hearing officers