Perry A. Zirkel, University Professor Emeritus of Education & Law at Lehigh University, has just released his latest law review article, You can read “The Impact of Endrew F. : An Updated Analysis of Resulting Judicial Rulings,” here, published in the January 15, 2026 issue of the Education Law Reporter.  

Of 419 judicial decisions referencing key special education law terminology issued between March 22, 2019 and March 22, 2025, Zirkel identified 247 decisions that appeared to have applied Endrew F.’s holding for a substantive free appropriate public education (“FAPE”), and then analyzed “a representative sample of one-third of the decisions”—specifically, “eighty-two final relevant decisions.” Zirkel found that the impact of the 2017 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Endrew F. on judicial decisions regarding FAPE has been “not at all dramatic,” with the “outcomes continu[ing] to be heavily skewed in favor of school districts.”

With respect to special education litigation, Zirkel’s article is a reminder of the importance of the continued work of COPAA and its members in advancing the rights of students with disabilities and their families in the courts.

The Endrew F. Court was the first to require that students’ individualized education programs (“IEPs”) must be “appropriately ambitious,” highlighting that students’ IEP teams must focus their work on designing programs that enable students with disabilities to make appropriate progress. For the families of the approximately 7.5 million students in the U.S. who have IEPs, the Endrew F. standard continues to be the foundation on which to build requests for clear and accurate data to ensure that students are making appropriate, measurable, and visible progress. You can read the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District RE-1 here.