Amy Rowley Case

this case is in regards to Amy Rowley, a deaf student that had excellent lip reading skills. She is under the IDEA Act and was provided resources in kindergarten that her parents wanted to follow her to the first grade. However, the school noted that Amy was an exceptionally bright student that with the use of some other aids would successfully complete the 1st grade. During the IEP meeting the school recommended that Amy be educated in a regular classroom at Furnace Woods, should continue to use the FM hearing aid, and should receive instruction from a tutor for the deaf for one hour each day and from a speech therapist for three hours each week. The Rowleys agreed with the IEP but insisted that Amy also be provided a qualified sign-language

483 F. Supp, 528, 531. It also found that “she performs better than the average child in her class and is advancing easily from grade to grade,” id., at 534, but “that she understands considerably less of what goes on in class than she would if she were not deaf” and thus “is not learning as much, or performing as well academically, as she would without her handicap,” id., at 532. This disparity between Amy’s achievement and her potential led the court to decide that she was not receiving a “free appropriate public education” which the court defined as “an opportunity to achieve [her] full potential commensurate with the opportunity provided to other children.” id., at 534. According to the District Court, such a standard “requires that the potential of the handicapped child be measured and compared to his or her performance, and that the remaining differential or ‘shortfall’ be compared to the shortfall experienced by nonhandicapped children.’ Ibid. The District Court’s definition arose from its assumption that the responsibility for “giving content to the requirement of an ‘appropriate education'” had ‘been left entirely to the federal courts and the hearing officers.’ Id., at

(The requirement of designing special education services to meet a student’s unique needs is also found within the IDEA’s purpose section and its definition of “special education”.) In many situations where a student’s special education services may appear to be ineffective, an important question to ask is whether the student’s educational program has been sufficiently tailored to meet his or her unique special education needs.
Second, the Supreme Court explained the central importance of considering each student’s educational potential when seeking to determine whether a student is receiving sufficient educational benefit. I quote here extensively from Rowley because of the importance of this