Opposition to Moving Special Ed Out of the Education Dept

 In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 

Project 2025 proposed to turn IDEA into a "no strings" block grant, effectively gutting the law and destroying protections that disability families have long relied upon. During the 2024 race, Trump denied any connection to the project, but now he proclaims it, praising OMB director Russ Vought "of Project 2025 fame."

Trump and Vought are now accomplishing their goal of ravaging the law. Instead of turning it into a block grant, they have tried firing most of the staff who enforce it.   More recently, they have shifted  OSERS to HHS and OCR to the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, headed by a political hack who uses the r-word as a slur.

Mackenzie Wilkes at POLITICO:

“I anticipate that it will become increasingly difficult for states to get both the support and the oversight that is needed,” said Stephanie Smith Lee, former director of the Office of Special Education Programs under President George W. Bush.

...

But transferring special education could get a harsh rebuke this month from lawmakers on Capitol Hill who oversee IDEA and both the education and health agencies. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, promised committee member Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) in an unrelated markup after the agreements were struck, that the panel would vote on the issue.

The promise from Cassidy, who lost his bid for reelection in May after Trump endorsed a primary challenger, came after Kaine proposed an amendment to prohibit the transfer of the special education and rehabilitative services office. The Virginia Democrat withdrew the amendment after Cassidy committed to Kaine’s ask for the panel to vote on bipartisan legislation or the amendment.

“I will publicly commit to working with him for the next markup in July at finding something which is an accommodation for everyone’s concerns,” Cassidy, who doesn’t support special education being moved to HHS, said at the June 17 HELP Committee meeting. The Louisiana Republican also said he’d prefer that the Labor Department oversee the program if an agreement is struck.

Lee’s organization, along with hundreds of disability, education and civil rights groups have pressed Congress to block the transfer of special education to HHS and the Education Department’s civil rights enforcement to the Justice Department.

“State education leaders and educators⸺including both general and special educators⸺also rely on ED’s expertise, guidance, monitoring, and technical assistance; responsibilities that Congress unilaterally funds and directs the Department to provide,” the groups wrote in an open letter to lawmakers urging Congress to “reject these transfers and preserve the Department of Education’s longstanding and Congressionally mandated roles.”

RFK Jr. Taking Over Special Ed: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

 In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 

Project 2025 proposed to turn IDEA into a "no strings" block grant, effectively gutting the law and destroying protections that disability families have long relied upon. During the 2024 race, Trump denied any connection to the project, but now he proclaims it, praising OMB director Russ Vought "of Project 2025 fame."

Trump and Vought are now accomplishing their goal of ravaging the law. Instead of shifting it to a block grant, they have tried firing most of the staff who enforce it.   More recently, they have shifted OSERS to HHS and OCR to the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, headed by a political hack who uses the r-word as a slur.

Michael C. Bender and Sheryl Gay Stolberg at NYT:

The Trump administration’s decision this week to put Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in charge of special education programs has sparked a sharp backlash from advocates for students with disabilities, who say the move will hurt children and that his views on autism make him unfit for the job.

Mr. Kennedy said earlier this year that children with autism would never hold a job, play baseball or go on a date. He quickly walked back the remarks, saying he was only speaking about the most severe cases — only to insist the next day that special education should be moved into his department. “They’re health-related programs rather than particularly educated programs,” Mr. Kennedy said.

Advocates for students with disabilities said that Mr. Kennedy’s comments show how the change puts disabled students at risk of being viewed as medical conditions to be treated instead of as boys and girls to be educated.

“It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of who kids with disabilities are, how they can be successful in school and how their futures can be very bright,” said Katy Neas, chief executive officer of The Arc, a national support group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

...

Edward M. Kennedy Jr., a civil rights advocate for people with disabilities and cousin of Secretary Kennedy, said in an email that he shared concerns about shifting special education programs to the Health and Human Services Department.

His biggest worry, he said, was “the policy and philosophical shift away from viewing children with disabilities as having strengths, potential and a right to be integrated into classrooms.

“This shift to HHS reverts toward an antiquated, ‘medical model’ of disability policy that views disabled children as ‘sick’ and in need of health care, not an education,” Mr. Kennedy, a health care regulatory lawyer, said.

...

 Maria Town, the president of the American Association of People With Disabilities, said Mr. Kennedy’s views on autism, ADHD and mental illness, and his embrace of unconventional treatments, worry her. Ms. Town has cerebral palsy and said she benefited from federal protections as a student.

“Are children with autism going to be forced to engage in practices that we know don’t work?” Ms. Town said. “Kids with disabilities already get medical care from their doctors and health care practitioners. They deserve a chance to be students and to engage in the classroom like any other kid.”

Gutting the Office for Civil Rights: Update

In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 

Project 2025 proposed to turn IDEA into a "no strings" block grant, effectively gutting the law and destroying protections that disability families have long relied upon. During the 2024 race, Trump denied any connection to the project, but now he proclaims it, praising OMB director Russ Vought "of Project 2025 fame."

Trump and Vought are now accomplishing their goal of ravaging the law. Instead of shifting it to a block grant, they have tried firing most of the staff who enforce it. 

BIANCA QUILANTAN and HANNAH PSALMA RAMIREZ at POLITICO write about the gutting of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education:

Hundreds of civil rights staffers were let go during the government-wide reduction in force last year. Many did not return even after the department started calling workers back, while other employees have chosen to leave in recent months as Trump has repeatedly vowed to shutter the agency and change what work is prioritized.

The number of employees in the civil rights office has declined to 321 from about 575 in fiscal 2024, according to May data from the Office of Personnel Management. In December, when the agency tried to call workers back, the office had 403 workers, but that number has been continuously declining.


“There's been a steady parade of people leaving,” said Linda Mangel, who was an OCR enforcement director and resigned last year. “Even the people who weren't RIFed were so shaken by what was happening in the agency that they have steadily left. … It's like a sinking ship.”

...

The agency called back 247 workers of the roughly 575 office staffers, with 85 ultimately returning to work, according to a January report by the Government Accountability Office, the federal government’s watchdog.

Staffers have chosen not to come back or are leaving the agency because they retired, got new jobs and are concerned about job stability. But some are uncomfortable with the work.

“After my RIF, I saw some things that were coming out of OCR that I think are not lawful and I would not be comfortable doing,” said Beth Gellman-Beer, former Philadelphia regional OCR office director, who had worked at the agency since the George W. Bush administration. “I figured if I go back, I'll probably be asked to do something that I'm not going to be able to sign, and I'll get eliminated anyway.”

...

The strain the staffing cuts have left is evident: the office reached zero resolution agreements involving sexual harassment, sexual violence, seclusion or restraint, racial harassment or discriminatory school discipline in 2025, according to a report from Sen. Bernie Sanders’ staff. And it reached 91 percent fewer resolution agreements in 2025 than in 2017, the first year of the first Trump administration.

Seclusion in Boxes

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the use of restraint and seclusion, along with cases of abuse.

Emilie Munson at The Times-Union (Albany, NY):

A public school district in northern New York broke state education regulations at least six times when it chose to confine students with disabilities in padded, wooden boxes in the classroom, an investigation by the New York State Education Department found.

The state ordered the Salmon River Central School District to change its policies and special education practices by this fall and submit paperwork to demonstrate its compliance.

State investigators found five students with disabilities were placed in the large boxes "with the door held shut," an act that constitutes seclusion, a practice banned by education regulations in New York.

The release of the state report is the latest development in a monthslong saga that resulted in criminal investigations, the introduction of new legislation, condemnation from the governor and the departures of multiple school administrators in the district since mid-December, when photos of one of the crates emerged on Facebook.

The state's conclusions differ from the findings released by an attorney hired by the school district to conduct a review of the use of the boxes. That attorney determined the boxes had been used this school year on two students who usually chose to go into the boxes and stay there. The students "were never locked or confined in the boxes (doors were only closed by the students themselves)," the attorney, Kate Reid, wrote in a report.

Assemblyman Michael Cashman, a Democrat who represents the area that includes the school district, pointed to the differences between the state's report and the one produced by the attorney retained by the district, saying "it raises even more questions as to why such a large gap in findings was released."

"The NYSED investigation findings tell an absolutely abhorrent story of mistreatment of youth," he said. "These harms are amplified by the cultural context they unfolded within: many of the families in the school district are Indigenous, a group that has a long history with systemic abuse from schools."

The attorney hired by the district said the public school used two timeout boxes at Salmon River Elementary School and had a third at the St. Regis Mohawk Elementary School that was never used. The state report did not discuss which schools the five students subjected to timeout boxes attended.

The school district built at least one of the wooden timeout boxes, according to records obtained by the Times Union.

Inequality and Section 504 Accommodations

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the legal rights of people with autism and other disabilities.   Inequality is a big part of the story. 

Kevin Mahnken at the 74:

While intended as a universal benefit, educational support for disabled children is significantly segregated by class, according to a paper released in January. The decade-spanning analysis of state and federal data found that wealthy families were twice as likely as poorer ones to be granted accommodations under the federal law Section 504.

A similar split was present in the vast architecture of special education offered through Individualized Education Programs — though in that case, the dynamic was reversed, with IEP recipients much more likely to come from low-income families than well-off ones.

...

In 2019, a pair of investigations by Wall Street Journal and New York Times revealed that school districts with higher average incomes enrolled conspicuously larger numbers of students with 504 plans. Eligible pupils are typically given extra time to complete assignments and tests, raising concerns that some parents exploited the program to gain unneeded academic perks for their kids.

...

[UCI doctoral student Nick] Ainsworth and his colleagues created the study by gathering academic records for millions of Oregon students between the 2008–09 and 2018–19 school years, then linking them to IRS tax files over the same period. The combined data allowed them to see not only which students were classified as needing IEP vs. 504 services, but which specific disability they reported.

In all, one-quarter of the most disadvantaged students had an IEP, a portion more than three times greater than that of the very wealthiest students. Meanwhile, nearly twice as many students from families near the top of the income scale were assigned a 504 plan than those near the bottom (2.9 percent vs. 1.5 percent).

Paul Morgan, a professor at the University of Albany whose work focuses on disability classification, said those patterns reflected important distinctions in how the two offerings are used.

IEPs provide specialized instruction geared toward each student’s learning goals, sometimes including placement outside general education classrooms. By contrast, 504 plans only require schools to make the requisite modification to give students equal access to learning opportunities. Their looser eligibility standards may allow parents with the resources and wherewithal to access support on behalf of children who aren’t obvious candidates for IEPs, Morgan remarked.

“These are benefits that don’t come with a lot of costs. Your child is typically not leaving the classroom,” he said. “They might be seen as beneficial without much downside in terms of tradeoffs.”

2027 Budget

 In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). 

Julia Metraux at Mother Jones:

President Donald Trump released his budget proposal for the fiscal year 2027. Surprisingly, given the cuts that would be necessary to fund the $1.5 trillion the Trump administration is asking for military spending, the budget also included over $500 million more funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, for a total of over $16 billion. But disability experts are wary of other aspects of what the Office of Management and Budget head Russell Vought, Project 2025’s architect, put forward. Vought wrote in the proposal that the budget “continues the Department of Education’s path to elimination, returning control of education back to America’s families.”

...

The budget recommends removing funding specifically designated for parent information centers, which help equip parents with information and resources they need to advocate for their kids with disabilities, as well as technical assistance for schools. This funding would instead come out of each state’s IDEA budget. Multiple experts I spoke with expressed concerns that this will lead to these parent programs not getting the funding they need.

... 

The Trump administration tried the same move last year, but Congress, in a bipartisan fashion, rejected this change to the budget for parent information centers. “Advocates for students and families will call on Congress to do so again,” said Stephanie Smith Lee, former director of the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs during the George W. Bush administration.

Last year, there was also an attempt to put funding for preschool for kids with disabilities in the states through consolidated grants. Though that was similarly rejected, it is again in the budget bill for fiscal year 2027.

...

Disability education is, of course, far from perfect. The federal government has already not followed through on a commitment to fund 40 percent of the cost of IEPs. The new budget proposal says that it will reduce “paperwork burdens on special educators so they can focus their time on serving students.”

But "paperwork burden" is code for the evidence that parents need if they go to due process.

See the Education Department report. 

Teaching Self-Advocacy

In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). 

Nadwodny, N., VanHook, B., Esham, B., Larsen, L. N., Levinson, S., & Eisenhower, A. (2026). Good intentions are not enough: Autistic perspectives on structural ableism within the walls of our classrooms. Autism, 0(0).
OnlineFirst https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613261426691

This study aimed to examine how structural ableism affects autistic learners by collecting first-person perspectives of current and former autistic students about how their school experiences shaped their ability to self-advocate. In addition, the study aimed to further highlight autistic perspectives by incorporating a community-participatory research design, which consisted of a primarily autistic research team. Participants consisted of 19 autistic adolescents and adults who represented a wide array of intersectional sociodemographic identities. Participants were engaged in a 90-min semi-structured interview to discuss their school experiences. Interviews were analyzed qualitatively and inductively through a critical constructivist approach to grounded theory. Data analysis highlighted many structural barriers to autistic self-advocacy for our participants. These barriers were described within six distinct domains which emerged as themes in our analysis: erasure, conformity, isolation, oppression, hidden expectations, and authority. This qualitative, community-participatory research study exposes the degree to which systems-level ableism exists within US K–12 systems. Specifically, our participants emphasized ableism that went beyond the individual or interpersonal level. We conclude with a series of recommendations on how to combat these manifestations of ableism in schools.

From the article:

As a whole, our participants described feeling dissatisfied with their K–12 school experiences and having trouble self-advocating at school. Our findings, in which participants expressed that their needs were largely unmet, replicated similar studies that identified significant dissatisfaction among autistic individuals with their school experiences (Brede et al., 2017; Parsons, 2014; Williams et al., 2019). In addition, the fact that our participants experienced difficulty self-advocating aligns with other findings that autistic students are less likely to self-advocate than nonautistic students at school (Santhanam & Wilson, 2023)

.

Inclusion: It's Complicated

 In The Politics of Autism, I write about special education and inclusion.

Dwyer, P., Nosova, E., Kermond, C., & Leadbitter, K. (2026). Inclusion, but not necessarily integration: Centring student perspectives and needs in education. Autism, 0(0).

The concept of inclusion is central to educational research and policy, with international conventions recognising disabled children’s right to inclusive education (United Nations, 2006, art. 24). However, inclusion is defined and understood in many different ways (Cigman, 2007; Dwyer, 2023; Winzer, 2009). Sometimes, educational inclusion is a synonym for integration: physical placement of disabled and neurodivergent students alongside non-disabled and neurotypical students (e.g. Dalgaard et al., 2022), although this could involve autistic people merely being tolerated, or having to adapt to the majority’s preferences (Weaver et al., 2021). Today, the dominant definition of inclusion – especially in the Global North – could be called ‘integration plus’: integration with supports so that all students can fully participate in diverse school communities and experiences (e.g. Ferguson, 1995; Pellicano et al., 2018). However, making an environment work well for everyone is not easy, and some autistic young people have articulated the basis of a radically different understanding of inclusion that one might call ‘integration-agnostic’. They suggested that inclusion is about belonging, being supported and feeling valued, regardless of whether one’s peers are neurotypical/non-disabled or neurodivergent/disabled (Goodall, 2020). We argue that a similar integration-agnostic understanding has the potential to transform education systems by increasing meaningful inclusiveness.

GAO Report: Office for Civil Rights Wasted Money, Dismissed Complaints

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the civil rights of people with autism and other disabilities.

The American Association of People with Disabilities:

The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) is deeply concerned by the findings of a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released today regarding the impacts of the widespread staffing cuts at the US Department of Education (ED).

Some of the most concerning findings were those showing that ED wasted up to $38 million of taxpayer money by paying its investigators in the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) not to work. This number represents close to a quarter of the Office for Civil Rights’ annual budget for all of 2025, which could have been used to support students, educators, and school districts. During this time, ED also permanently closed seven of its twelve OCR regional offices and assigned its entire caseload to the remaining five offices.

ED also summarily dismissed 90% of the 9,000 discrimination complaints submitted during this period, without review. This came after 2024, a year in which a record number of complaints were submitted.

The Office for Civil Rights is an organization within the Department of Education that is charged with protecting students from discrimination based on race, sex, disability, color, national origin, and age. Students are often given pathways to file discrimination complaints within their school or college. When the school’s efforts are insufficient, or, as they are too often, non-existent, a student can then file an OCR complaint.

Legal Literacy and Section 504

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the civil rights of people with autism and other disabilities. 

Decker, J. R. (2025). Hidden Disabilities: The Urgent Need to Increase Section 504 Legal Literacy. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 0(0). https://doi-org.ccl.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/10442073251393335 

Abstract:

The hidden disabilities of students and staff in schools—which include medical and psychological conditions—have increased. Therefore, it is imperative that everyone in education is well versed in the law that protects them, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504). The limited research indicates that teachers, school leaders, and other school employees lack Section 504 legal literacy. This article aims to increase awareness of hidden disabilities by explaining what they are and emphasize their significance through a discussion of anxiety, asthma, and allergies. It also intends to address the problem of the lack of Section 504 legal literacy by answering frequently asked questions about Section 504. University instructors, special education directors, and others are invited to share this relevant legal guidance to increase the legal literacy of their students and coworkers. Overall, this article hopes to ensure that students and employees with disabilities in schools—who are not eligible under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)—receive better support and lawsuits are prevented. 

 

Some Education Staffers Are Back. Don't Get Your Hopes Up.

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential politics. Many posts have discussed Trump's bad record on disability issues. As his words and actions have shown, he despises Americans with disabilities. He told his nephew Fred that severely disabled people -- such as Fred's son -- should "just die."

Project 2025 proposed to turn IDEA into a "no strings" block grant, effectively gutting the law and destroying protections that disability families have long relied upon. During the 2024 race, Trump denied any connection to the project, but now he proclaims it, praising OMB director Russ Vought "of Project 2025 fame."

Trump and Vought are now accomplishing their goal of ravaging the law. Instead of shifting it to a block grant, they tried firing most of the staff who enforce it. 

Cory Turner at NPR:

The deal Congress reached to re-open the federal government requires the Trump administration to reinstate federal workers who were fired in October, including those charged with overseeing the nation's special education laws. But it's not clear how long they'll be back.

As NPR has reported, the Office for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) inside the U.S. Department of Education is the central nervous system for programs that support students with disabilities. It not only offers guidance to families but also oversees state compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

OSERS can't do its job without staff, and, according to a new Education Department filing, the office lost 121 of its 135 employees in the October reduction-in-force. That matters because, while Wednesday's funding agreement will return those workers to "employment status" as of Sept. 30, there appears to be little protecting them after Jan. 30, when that provision expires.

 "We are concerned special education will cease to exist," says Jacqueline Rodriguez, CEO of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. ... If OSERS stays a shadow of its former self, Rodriguez says, "the only conclusion that we can draw is that it is an intentional dismantling of the entire system of special education."

The Office for Civil Rights has also taken a big hit.

OCR lost 299 staffers after the March reduction-in-force but, because of a lawsuit, most (247) remain on temporary, paid administrative leave. Another 137 were cut in the October reduction-in-force, which has been paused by a federal judge. Under the new government funding agreement, those 137 staffers should be reinstated, at least until Jan. 30.

By the department's own numbers, that means just 62 staffers of OCR's current 446 employees have not received RIF notices. That's roughly 10% of the office's 600-plus headcount in January, when the second Trump administration began.

OCR and OSERS are both mandated by federal law.

"I've got to say, I'm just shocked that they can destroy an entire unit of an organization that's created by statute," said R. Shep Melnick, a professor of American politics at Boston College who has been writing about OCR for decades.

Moving Special Ed to HHS

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential politics. Many posts have discussed Trump's bad record on disability issues. As his words and actions have shown, he despises Americans with disabilities. He told his nephew Fred that severely disabled people -- such as Fred's son -- should "just die."

Project 2025 proposed to turn IDEA into a "no strings" block grant, effectively gutting the law and destroying protections that disability families have long relied upon. During the 2024 race, Trump denied any connection to the project, but now he proclaims it, praising OMB director Russ Vought "of Project 2025 fame."

Trump and Vought are now accomplishing their goal of ravaging the law. Instead of shifting it to a block grant, they are firing most of the staff who enforce it.  A judge has temporarily paused the attack, but the administration will likely find ways to ignore or circumvent the order.

Laura Meckler at WP:

The Trump administration is exploring moving the $15 billion program that supports students with disabilities to a different agency within the federal government as it works to close the Education Department altogether, a department official said Tuesday.

The effort comes on the heels of the agency’s decision this month to lay off the vast majority of employees working on special-education services and months after Education Secretary Linda McMahon talked about moving the program to the Department of Health and Human Services. Her goal is to fulfill President Donald Trump’s promise to close the Education Department and move its functions to other parts of the government.

...

Congressional action is required to close the department and to move its major functions to other agencies. But earlier this year, the Trump administration pioneered a work-around in which they signed an agreement to move career, technical and adult education grants to the Labor Department. The agreement carefully sidesteps the statutes by having the Education Department retain oversight and leadership while managing the programs alongside Labor.

In April, Eli Smolen explained at Edtrust:

We know how HHS has treated students with disabilities in the past. Before the Education Department was enshrined into law in 1979, the Department of Health and Human Services, previously known as the Department of Health Education and Welfare, was responsible for students with disabilities. Under their purview, a Congressional investigation revealed nearly half of all students with disabilities were not receiving the appropriate services, and almost a quarter were barred from attending school altogether.

Beyond a problematic past, the HHS is not fit to address the academic needs of today’s children. Not only is HHS undergoing its own upheaval due to the reduction in workforce, but the department also lacks the institutional knowledge and subject expertise to provide sufficient educational services and guidance. As the Secretary of HHS continues to peddle disproven theories about autism and other disabilities, advocates are rightfully concerned.

In addition, the Trump Administration has made no effort to outline how the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) will be enforced. The existing mechanisms to ensure students were receiving the services afforded to them by federal law, were primarily administered by the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education. There is no analogous office in HHS and any effort to enforce civil rights initiatives is likely to be hindered by staffing shortages. With thousands of civil rights complaints piling up, families and students are already feeling the effects of a system without accountability.

 

Judge Pauses the Attack on Special Ed

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential politics. Many posts have discussed Trump's bad record on disability issues. As his words and actions have shown, he despises Americans with disabilities. He told his nephew Fred that severely disabled people -- such as Fred's son -- should "just die."

Project 2025 proposed to turn IDEA into a "no strings" block grant, effectively gutting the law and destroying protections that disability families have long relied upon. During the 2024 race, Trump denied any connection to the project, but now he proclaims it, praising OMB director Russ Vought "of Project 2025 fame."

Trump and Vought are now accomplishing their goal of ravaging the law. Instead of shifting it to a block grant, they are firing most of the staff who enforce it.

 Zachary Schermele at USA Today:

A federal judge on Wednesday, Oct. 15, temporarily paused the U.S. Department of Education's decision to lay off nearly everyone in its special education division.

Judge Susan Illston in the Northern District of California issued the ruling, which applies to both the Education Department firings as well as thousands of others that swept through the federal workforce over the weekend.

In a court hearing, Illston blasted the White House, accusing President Donald Trump of using the government shutdown for political reasons.

"It's very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs," she said. "It's a human cost that cannot be tolerated."

...

[Secretary of Education Linda McMahon] suggested that no education funding, including money for special education programs, will be impacted by the new layoffs. Yet nearly every person in charge of administering billions of dollars through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was fired, a staffer previously told USA TODAY.

Before the temporary restraining order was issued Wednesday, the Education Department firings weren't scheduled to fully take effect for about two months.

Gutting the Special Ed Office

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential politics. Many posts have discussed Trump's bad record on disability issues. As his words and actions have shown, he despises Americans with disabilities. He told his nephew Fred that severely disabled people -- such as Fred's son -- should "just die."

Project 2025 proposed to turn IDEA into a "no strings" block grant, effectively gutting the law and destroying protections that disability families have long relied upon. During the 2024 race, Trump denied any connection to the project, but now he proclaims it, praising OMB director Russ Vought "of Project 2025 fame".

Trump and Vought are now accomplishing their goal of ravaging the law. Instead of shifting it to a block grant, they are firing most of the staff who enforce it.

Cory Turner at NPR:

According to sources, all staff in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), with the exception of a handful of top officials and support staff, were cut in Friday's RIF. The office is the central nervous system for programs that support students with disabilities, not only offering guidance to families but providing monitoring and oversight of states to make sure they're complying with the landmark Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Lisa Lightner:

What does this mean? 

• Staff responsible for IDEA oversight, state guidance, and enforcement are gone.
• Many of the technical assistance centers and discretionary grant programs OSEP manages are now unfunded or leaderless.
• Parent centers and state agencies that rely on OSEP for compliance answers? Emails are bouncing and phones are ringing to no one. (I too, tried emailing some contacts there and it bounced back)The message is clear: OSEP wasn’t restructured. It was erased.

Without OSEP, there’s no one left at the federal level to ensure your school is following the law. No one to oversee FAPE. No one to push back when a district cuts services. And no, this isn’t a drill. It’s happening now.

What This Means for Parents and Teachers — TODAY

You know all those rights you’ve read about in IDEA?

There’s no one left to enforce them.

Fewer protections for your child’s IEP

OSEP was the agency that:

• Issued guidance letters explaining your rights
• Clarified gray areas in IDEA
• Investigated when states or districts broke the law

Now? That accountability structure is collapsing. If your school refuses services or ignores an IEP… there’s no one federally overseeing that anymore.

 

Trump's Attack on People with Disabilities

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential politics. Many posts have discussed Trump's bad record on disability issues. As his words and actions have shown, he despises Americans with disabilities. He told his nephew Fred that severely disabled people -- such as Fred's son -- should "just die."

Arthur Jones II at ABC:

The nation's special education services have been significantly impacted after Friday's mass layoffs within the Department of Education and it could have an immediate impact on children with disabilities, education department sources told ABC News.

"Do people realize that this is happening to this population of vulnerable students?" one education department leader told ABC News.

"[If] there's no staff, who the heck is going to administer this program? That's the absurdity of this," the source, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, added.

The department leader stressed that several employees within the offices of Special Education Programs and the Rehabilitative Services Administration -- the two divisions that make up the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) -- were cut over the weekend.

The agency enforces the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the law creating a free and appropriate education for children with disabilities, and funds special education services to the tune of around $15 billion.

...

Rachel Gittleman, the president of AFGE Local 252, believes all remaining offices in OSERS below the senior executive services level were RIFed Friday.

“The RIF of OSERS and OESE doubles down on the harm to K-12 students and schools across the country, which are already feeling the impacts of a hamstring Office for Civil Rights (OCR) from the March RIF,” she said.

 

 

Special Ed and School Choice

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, which is proposing to close.

Kara Arundel at K-12 Dive:

The U.S. Department of Education is working with school districts and states to expand school choice models for students with disabilities that will spur innovative and effective learning opportunities, a top federal special education official said during opening remarks Tuesday at the Office of Special Education Programs’ annual conference.

“Our goal is to expand choices for students with special needs so that every family has options to find the best-fit school for their child and not have it be the other way around, where they have to force their child to be a fit in a school that may not be for them,” Diana Diaz-Harrison, deputy assistant secretary of the department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, told the 1,200 conference attendees.

...

Public school advocates have pushed back on federal and state efforts to increase private school choice options, saying public schools would lose money and resources if taxpayer-supported funding is shared with private schools. They also worry about equitable access to high-quality education programs and accountability for private schools.

Additionally, school choice opponents point out that private schools can choose which students to enroll while public schools must educate all students, including those with disabilities. Private schools do not have to comply with IDEA.

...

Diaz-Harrison said her own struggles to find a right-fit school for her son with autism inspired her to found the Arizona Autism Charter Schools. Opened in 2014, the network now has five schools with more planned, she said.

What Is Inclusion?

 In The Politics of Autism, I write about special education and inclusion.

Perrelet, V., Veyre, A., Chawki, L., Margot, C., & Cappe, É. (2025). What are we targeting when we support inclusive education for autistic students? A systematic review of 233 empirical studies and call for community partnerships. Autism, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613251352223

Lay abstract:

Multiple complex considerations are involved in supporting mainstream schooling for autistic students. This systematic review aimed to describe inclusive education interventions and outcome measures for autistic students. A total of 233 experimental studies were analyzed. Furthermore, consultation sessions with autistic people, parents, and inclusive education professionals were organized to enable in-depth interpretation of the results using a participatory approach. Cognitive-behavioral interventions were the most common intervention type in the international scientific literature, and social interactions of autistic children were the most frequently targeted outcomes. A lack of consensus on how to measure school inclusion and participation was found. Although some studies considered perspectives on the acceptability of interventions, most of them failed to evaluate implementation aspects. The lived experience experts highlighted tensions between the systematic review findings and the practical realities of inclusive education; this led to discussions about the possible application of the United Nations’ definition of inclusion. Overall, empirical research supporting the inclusion of autistic students aligns more closely with the concept of integration, which requires students to adapt to the school context. The focus of inclusion has been shifting from minimizing the unique traits of students with special needs to adapting the environment for them to take a greater part in school activities.

Slowing Civil Rights Enforcement

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the civil rights of people with autism and other disabilities. 

At AP, Collin Binkley reports on civil rights enforcement at the Department of Education. McMahon says personnel cuts have not slowed it down.  

By several measures, however, the output of the Office for Civil Rights appears to have fallen sharply in comparison with previous years. A public database of the office’s resolution agreements — cases in which schools or universities voluntarily agreed to address civil rights concerns — suggests the office’s work has slowed.

The database lists just 65 resolutions so far this year, on pace to fall far below previous years’ totals. Last year the office logged 380 resolutions in total, following 561 in 2023. During President Donald Trump’s first term, the office averaged more than 800 resolutions a year, including 1,300 during his first year in office.

Other internal data obtained by The Associated Press show a similar trend. Since Trump took office, the total number of resolved cases is down about 40% from the same time frame last year — including cases that were dismissed, mediated or reached a voluntary resolution. Compared with last year, there also has been a 70% decrease in the number of cases resolved through resolution agreements or action taken by a school to comply with federal law, the internal data shows.

Meanwhile, new complaints have increased 9%. The total number of cases has now climbed beyond 25,000.

...

Adrienne Hazel filed a complaint in April after her 20-year-old son Ricky, who has autism, was placed in a public school program without a certified teacher and was not given an individual learning plan. Hazel, of Southfield, Michigan, has not heard from the federal office after receiving an automatic reply when she filed the complaint.

Things moved faster last year when Hazel filed a separate complaint for her son. The office notified Ricky’s school, which Hazel says spurred the district to reach an agreement with her within about three months. This time, she said, it feels like she’s on her own.

“There has been zero response to this,” she said. “He’s basically going into a babysitting situation. He’s not getting the things that he needs to grow into independence. And he’ll just be aging without getting an education.”

Marcie Lipsitt, a special education advocate in Michigan who worked with Hazel, said such stories are common. She helps families file complaints but warns it could take at least a year before an investigation opens. Some schools have backtracked on previous agreements, she said, yet parents can’t get a response from the federal office.

“It’s horrible. I’m watching children suffer like they’ve never suffered,” she said. “There is no accountability.”

Education Funding Pause

In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 

Mark Lieberman at Education Week:

School districts, state leaders, and education experts continue to sound the alarm that the Trump administration’s hold on $6.8 billion in federal funds Congress already allocated for education will disproportionately harm students from low-income families, students with disabilities, and English learners.

The Trump administration notified states last week that seven federal education programs are currently under “ongoing programmatic review” despite a July 1 disbursement date enshrined in federal law.

The federal government distributes money for those programs using formulas that prioritize school districts with high concentrations of poverty.

...

The Trump administration sent the first of two scheduled installments of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act funds ($15.8 billion in total) to every state as scheduled on July 1. But that doesn’t mean students with disabilities will be unaffected by federal funding changes.

Out of 5.3 million English learners nationwide, roughly 16%, or 837,000, also qualify for special education services. Some students who qualify for migrant education services or attend federally funded before- and after-school programs also have disabilities. Both could experience disrupted services as federal funding streams dry up more quickly than districts expected.

Many special education directors rely on Title IV-A funds in tandem with IDEA funds to provide mental health support and other health services for students with disabilities, said Myrna Mandlawitz, policy and legislative consultant for the Council of Administrators of Special Education.

The cancellation of that program has been particularly confounding, Mandlawitz said, because it’s a block-grant program just like the one the Trump administration has proposed in an effort to consolidate 18 separate federal funding streams.

“That is a flexible pot of $1.3 billion already allocated for school districts that they can use in a variety of ways,” Mandlawitz said. “To say you’re not going to give that money out makes absolutely no sense given their philosophy” on flexibility for states to spend education funds as they see fit