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.
The U.S. Department of Education has hired a new senior adviser to the secretary of education tasked with reforming the Institute of Education Sciences, according to a Friday announcement.
The department’s pick, Amber Northern, is on leave from her role as senior vice president for research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education policy think tank. The announcement said IES, which houses the National Center for Education Statistics, has “failed to provide a clear and compelling research agenda that puts students at the center.” Department officials also accused IES of prioritizing “politically charged topics and entrenched interests” in its research contracts.
The move comes after the Education Department axed $900 million in IES contracts in February then fired more than 80 percent of its 120 employees a month later as part of wider layoffs across the department. Multiple lawsuits have been filed by research groups in response to the cuts.
Peter Greene at Forbes reports on the Trump budget request:
Everything under the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the research wing of the department, is an asterisk until the administration is done “reimagining a more efficient, effective, and useful IES.” However, the funding for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the test that measures how U.S. students are doing, is still there, albeit reduced from $193 million to $137 million.
