The Department of Education plans to move oversight of special education to another agency, alarming many disability rights advocates. Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images hide title toggle title Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images Catch up on what you missed with our educational newsletter, sent weekly. On a call with disability rights advocates Thursday, U.S. Department of Education officials sought
The Department of Education plans to move oversight of special education to another agency, alarming many disability rights advocates.
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On a call with disability rights advocates Thursday, U.S. Department of Education officials sought to ease concerns about plans to move the agency’s special education offices to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The effort seemed to fail.
“Today’s briefing left more questions than answers for parents and educators,” says Chad Rummel, who heads the Council for Exceptional Children and was one of many disability advocates who attended the call. “Today we heard that there is no clear and transparent plan regarding the change to HHS.”
According to a recording of the call obtained by NPR, the acting assistant secretary who oversees special education, Kelly Rogers, said she wanted to assure advocates that the move would not harm federal protections for students with disabilities. “US Health and Human Services will not take over IDEA. Period.” Rogers was referring to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law that guarantees students with disabilities a quality public education alongside their non-disabled peers.
However, Rogers also said at the same time that staff at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), many of the people actually responsible for supporting states and schools in implementing IDEA, would move to HHS. He said he would continue to supervise those staff from his position at the Department of Education “with additional support from HHS.”
While department officials have been touting this measure as a way to streamline federal bureaucracy in education, advocates believe it is doing the opposite. “This proposal appears to add another layer of bureaucracy while creating additional confusion and uncertainty for families, educators, and state agencies,” says Denise Marshall, executive director of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA).
On Thursday’s call, Rogers said, “This administration is firmly committed to upholding the federal government’s duty to enforce federal protections for people with disabilities.” And he continued: “This association does not alter that obligation.” Rogers did not share a specific timeline for these changes to take effect.
NPR followed up with the Department of Education via email after the call, and while the agency did not respond to questions about its timeline, press secretary Savannah Newhouse wrote, “Advocates, parents and teachers in the special education community have nothing to fear” about the changes. “What our partnership with HHS does is place these important federal responsibilities in a better-positioned agency and leverage HHS’s expertise in working with people with disabilities of all ages.”
The private briefing came three weeks after the initial announcement that the Department of Education would move two of its core functions — special education and civil rights — to other agencies in an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to dismantle the department entirely. The department has already shared plans to move more than a dozen of its offices to other agencies as part of its “Return Education to the States” campaign.
For decades, the Department of Education has overseen IDEA and other services for people with disabilities, such as helping adults transition to life after school. While the federal government has never directly managed how schools serve students, it has been responsible for holding schools accountable for meeting the needs of those students, providing federal funding for services and offering technical assistance to local leaders.
For months, the disability community has been nervous about how IDEA’s mobile proctoring could affect students.
“The concern is not that IDEA will disappear overnight. The concern is that the administration is preserving IDEA at the Department of Education on paper, while moving much of the work that makes IDEA real for families elsewhere,” said Jacqueline Rodriguez, executive director of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. “For students, that could mean more confusion, slower guidance, weaker follow-up, and less accountability when services are delayed or denied.”
The Department for Education’s Newhouse denied the changes affected the way staff do their jobs. “A different building, a different floor, or a different desk does not change your job responsibilities and your commitment to serving students with disabilities every day.”
Department officials say federal funds dedicated to special education will continue to flow to states and schools through the agency for now, but it’s unclear how those systems might change when OSERS staff move to HHS.
“The administration today recognized what the law has always required: the Department of Education and the secretary of education remain legally responsible for administering and enforcing IDEA. This reorganization neither furthers the stated goal of closing the department nor transfers new authority to the states,” says COPAA’s Marshall. He called on Congress to intervene and stop this measure: a federal agency can only be completely dissolved by an act of Congress.
But as Marshall and other advocates pointed out, administration officials seem well aware of this fact, which may be why the Department of Education keeps some staff, including Rogers, at the Department of Education.
Marshall called the strategy “a farce.”
Edited by: Nirvi Shah
Design and visual development by: L.A. Johnson
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