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SCHAFFER v. WEAST Ginsburg, J., dissenting

the very expenditures necessary to ensure each child cov­ ered by the IDEA access to a free appropriate education. These outlays surely relate to “educational services.” In­ deed, a carefully designed IEP may ward off disputes pro­ ductive of large administrative or litigation expenses. This case is illustrative. Not until the District Court ruled that the school district had the burden of persuasion did the school design an IEP that met Brian Schaffer’s spe­ cial educational needs. See ante, at 55; Tr. of Oral Arg. 21–22 (Counsel for the Schaffers observed that “Montgomery County . . . gave [Brian] the kind of services he had sought from the beginning . . . once [the school district was] given the burden of proof.”). Had the school district, in the ﬁrst instance, offered Brian a public or private school placement equivalent to the one the district ultimately provided, this entire litigation and its attendant costs could have been avoided. Notably, nine States, as friends of the Court, have urged that placement of the burden of persuasion on the school dis­ trict best comports with the IDEA’s aim. See Brief for Com­ monwealth of Virginia et al. as Amici Curiae. If allocating the burden to school districts would saddle school systems with inordinate costs, it is doubtful that these States would have ﬁled in favor of petitioners. Cf. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Appellees Urging Afﬁrmance in No. 00–1471 (CA4), p. 12 (“Having to carry the burden of proof regarding the adequacy of its proposed IEP . . . should not substantially increase the workload for the school.”).3 One can demur to the Fourth Circuit’s observation that courts “do not automatically assign the burden of proof to the side with the bigger guns,” 377 F. 3d, at 453, for no such reﬂexive action is at issue here. It bears emphasis that “the vast majority of parents whose children require the beneﬁts and protections provided in the IDEA” lack “knowledg[e] 3

Before the Fourth Circuit, the United States ﬁled in favor of the Schaf­ fers; in this Court, the United States supported Montgomery County.