Hugh H. Bownes

“ Public education is to be provided to all handicapped children, unconditionally and without exception. It encompasses a universal right, and is not predicated upon any type of guarantees that the child will benefit from the special education and services before he or she is considered eligible to receive such education. Congress explicitly recognized the particular plight and special needs of the severely handicapped, and rather than excluding them from the Act's coverage, gave them priority status. ”

“ Congress clearly saw education for the handicapped as a dynamic process, in which new methodologies would be continually perfected, tried, and either adopted or discarded, so that the state's educational response to each handicapped child's particular needs could be better met. ”

“ Recent court decisions . . . have made it clearer than ever that we have not only a moral but also a legal obligation to provide the opportunity for every handicapped citizen to insure his or her highest educational potential. An important provision of the bill before us today would require that every State have in effect a policy stating the right of all handicapped children to a "free appropriate public education". ”

“ The language of the Act in its entirety makes clear that a "zero-reject" policy is at the core of the Act, and that no child, regardless of the severity of his or her handicap, is to ever again be subjected to the deplorable state of affairs which existed at the time of the Act's passage, in [p961] which millions of handicapped children received inadequate education or none at all. In summary, the Act mandates an appropriate public education for all handicapped children, regardless of the level of achievement that such children might attain. ”

“ Exclusion from school, institutionalization, the lack of appropriate services to provide attention to the individual child's need -- indeed, the denial of equal rights by a society which proclaims liberty and justice for all of its people -- are echoes which the subcommittee has found throughout all of its hearings. ”

“ In Parks, the court speculated that in the hypothetical case of a child in a coma, the state might not have to pay for the living expenses of such a child placed in an institution since such a child would be uneducable and therefore his living expenses would not be related to education. Id. at 1405. This dictum is irrelevant to the instant case. Timothy W. lives at home, is seeking only educational services, not institutional placement, is not in a coma, and does respond to stimuli and his environment. ”

“ Dr. Patricia Andrews, a developmental pediatrician, was the only person who testified that Timothy did not have educational needs and could not benefit from education. Her only contact with Timothy had been during an evaluation when he was two months old. While she testified that Timothy was profoundly mentally retarded and that an X-ray study of his brain showed he had virtually no cortex present, she also stated that such a study alone could not predict how much functioning was going to develop. ”

“ What is not envisioned is that the appropriate educational programming and related services will result in an educational benefit being conferred. Special education can no more ensure good results than can regular education. ”

“ In its discussion of reallocation of funds, the Act states that "whenever a State educational agency determines that a local educational agency is adequately providing a free appropriate public education to all handicapped children . ”

“ The House report also included such priorities: "In conformance with the overall goal of ending exclusion . . . [the bill gives] first priority to children 'unserved' [and] second priority to severely handicapped children." ”

“ He recommended physical and occupational therapy, and cognitive programming efforts to continue in the areas of consistently responding to sound, anticipating feeding, and operating an electronic device to operate a sound source. And on January 9, 1987, Ruth Keans, a physical therapist at the Child Development Center, performed a physical therapy evaluation and concluded that she did not see any voluntary movements, but that Timothy did respond to his mother's voice. ”

“ The record contains testimony that Timothy W.'s needs include sensory stimulation, physical therapy, improved head control, socialization, consistency in responding to sound sources, and partial participation in eating. The educational consultants who drafted Timothy's individualized education program recommended that Timothy's special education program should include goals and objectives in the areas of motor control, communication, socialization, daily living skills, and recreation. ”

“ Hershman, 701 F.2d 223, 228 (1st Cir. 1983) ("Congress established a priority under the Act for the most severely retarded children, 20 U.S.C. § 1412 (3) , for many of whom, certainly, education will not consist of classroom training but rather training in very basic skills") ; Kruelle, 642 F.2d at 693 ("the concept of education is necessarily broad" with respect to severely or profoundly retarded children) ”