Judicial Appeals for Hearing/Review Officer Decisions under IDEA: An Empirical Analysis

This study analyzed the 65 hearing officer decisions in Illinois between 1982 and 2010 that were subject to a court appeal available in the Westlaw or Individuals With Disabilities Education Law Report (IDELR) databases. These 65 cases yielded 86 issue rulings. Based on refined measures of outcomes and deference, or standard of judicial review, for issue rulings as the unit of analysis, the principal findings were that (a) outcomes were skewed in favor of districts at both the hearing/review officer and court levels; (b) the outcome upon judicial appeal was the same or largely unchanged for the vast majority of the issue rulings; and (c) the standard of judicial review did not appear to be a major factor in relation to the final court outcome.