546US1
Unit: $$U7
[09-04-08 12:12:39] PAGES PGT: OPIN
Cite as: 546 U. S. 49 (2005)
59
Opinion of the Court
be allocated to litigation and administrative expenditures or to educational services. Moreover, there is reason to be lieve that a great deal is already spent on the administration of the Act. Litigating a due process complaint is an expen sive affair, costing schools approximately $8,000 to $12,000 per hearing. See Department of Education, J. Chambers, J. Harr, & A. Dhanani, What Are We Spending on Procedural Safeguards in Special Education 1999–2000, p. 8 (May 2003) (prepared under contract by American Institutes for Re search, Special Education Expenditure Project). Congress has also repeatedly amended the Act in order to reduce its administrative and litigation-related costs. For example, in 1997 Congress mandated that States offer mediation for IDEA disputes. § 615(e) of IDEA, as added by § 101 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997, Pub. L. 105–17, 111 Stat. 90, 20 U. S. C. § 1415(e). In 2004, Congress added a mandatory “resolution session” prior to any due process hearing. § 615(f)(1)(B) of IDEA, as added by § 101 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, Pub. L. 108–446, 118 Stat. 2720, 20 U. S. C. A. § 1415(f)(1)(B) (Supp. 2005). It also made new findings that “[p]arents and schools should be given ex panded opportunities to resolve their disagreements in posi tive and constructive ways,” and that “[t]eachers, schools, local educational agencies, and States should be relieved of irrelevant and unnecessary paperwork burdens that do not lead to improved educational outcomes.” §§ 1400(c)(8)–(9). Petitioners in effect ask this Court to assume that every IEP is invalid until the school district demonstrates that it is not. The Act does not support this conclusion. IDEA relies heavily upon the expertise of school districts to meet its goals. It also includes a so-called “stay-put” provision, which requires a child to remain in his or her “then-current educational placement” during the pendency of an IDEA hearing. § 1415( j). Congress could have required that a
