In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 7.5 million children 3 to 21 years old received services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in AY 2022-23.
About 980,000 of them were autistic, up from 498,000 in 2012-13.
The Trump administration is halving the staff of the Department of Education.
Massive layoffs initiated this week at the Education Department could hamstring the federal government’s efforts to assist students with disabilities, former officials and education experts said, citing blows to the agency’s civil rights and research divisions.
On Tuesday, the department began laying off around 1,300 employees, cutting nearly half the staff in its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and over 100 from the Institute of Education Sciences, according to information released by American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, the union for department staff members.
The cuts in those two divisions mean there will be far fewer staff members to finish the 12,000 pending federal investigations into allegations of civil rights violations at schools — roughly half of which involve disability issues — and fewer employees to review and distribute government-funded research into effective ways to educate children with autism or severe intellectual disabilities.
Marco Margaritoff at Huffpost:
Education Secretary Linda McMahon is fumbling key acronyms on national television.
The former professional wrestling promoter sat down Tuesday with Fox News to defend her department’s massive staff cuts of some 1,300 employees, which were announced earlier that day, only to unwittingly prove just how essential education really is.
McMahon explained on “The Ingraham Angle” that Congress appropriates money through the department’s expenditures and programs including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, which provides children with disabilities free public education.
When asked what “IDEA” stood for, however, the 76-year-old couldn’t accurately answer — and told host Laura Ingraham, “Well, do you know what? I’m not sure I can tell you exactly what it stands for, except that it’s the programs for disabled and needs [students]
