Last week, the U.S Department of Education (ED) announced final priorities for use in K-12 discretionary grant programs. The priorities, effective October 9, 2025, include: 1) Promoting Evidence-Based Literacy to strengthen student outcomes by advancing and expanding evidence-based literacy instruction; 2) Expanding Education Choice to expand education choice by increasing access to charter schools/other innovative models, supporting homeschooling and education savings accounts, and broadening opportunities for dual enrollment, career pathways, tutoring, and, work-based learning; and, 3) Returning Education to the States to support returning education authority to states and tribes. Because the discretionary grants are focused on all of K-12, COPAA and partners had formally advocated to ED this summer that priorities 1 (Literacy) and 2 (School Choice/Charters) should direct grantees to specifically include students with disabilities in their applications due to these students’ documented low performance in reading, and, the known need to help charter schools better serve students with disabilities. However, ED declined to include this level of detail by explaining that States and districts “may” include students with disabilities, along with any other student group they choose.