Skip to content
IEP Atlas
Start free trial
Menu

Endrew F. standard

Last updated

The Endrew F. standard is the 2017 Supreme Court rule that an IEP must be reasonably calculated to enable progress appropriate to the child's circumstances.

Topic: IDEA, law and procedure

In plain terms

In Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, the Supreme Court rejected the idea that a program offering only minimal, "merely more than de minimis" progress was enough. The Court said every child should have the chance to meet challenging objectives, and that goals should be appropriately ambitious. It did not set one test score or growth rate; what counts as appropriate progress depends on each student.

How it shows up in an IEP

The standard pushes teams to write goals with real targets based on a baseline, to measure progress honestly, and to change the plan when the data shows the student is not moving. A goal repeated unchanged year after year is a warning sign.

Example

A team notices the same math goal has appeared in three IEPs. It reviews the data, changes the instruction, and writes a new goal with a baseline and a target set from expected growth rates.

Related terms

  • FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education)FAPE is the right of every eligible child with a disability to special education and related services, at no cost, designed around the child's needs.
  • Measurable annual goalA measurable annual goal is an IEP goal written so that two different people could observe the student and agree on whether it was met.
  • Progress monitoringProgress monitoring is the regular, repeated measurement of a student's performance on a skill to check whether instruction is working.
  • BaselineA baseline is a student's measured performance on a skill before instruction toward a new goal begins, used as the goal's starting point.
  • IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)IDEA is the federal law that guarantees eligible children with disabilities a free appropriate public education and sets the rules for IEPs.

On IEP Atlas

This page describes special education terms and federal rules in general terms and is not legal advice. Our editorial policy explains how IEP Atlas writes and reviews content. Browse all 244 terms.