Federal Legislation & News
in Special Education
IDEA Determination Letters Show States in Need of Intervention
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) has released determination letters on state implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Parts B and C. States participating in Part B, which serves individuals age 3-21, and Part C, which serves infants and toddlers birth through age 2, are scored against four ratings based on the state’s performance on its State Performance Plan (SPP): Meets Requirements; Needs Assistance; Needs Intervention; and Needs Substantial Intervention. According to analysis provided by The Advocacy Institute of the determination letters on Part B performance, when compared to 2025, ratings improved for four states: AL, FL, RI, SD; ratings dropped for seven states: ME, MD, MN, NM, NY, ND, VT; and just 5 states have received a “Meets Requirements” rating each of the past 13 years (2014-2026): KS, MA, MO, PA, WI. COPAA member Candace Cortiella and founder of The Advocacy Institute has analyzed the letters and provided map of state ratings.
COPAA and Partners Condemn DOJ’s Interpretation of Olmstead
In reaction to a Department of Justice (DOJ) memo regarding the landmark 1999 Supreme Court ruling Olmstead v. L.C., and in conjunction with the anniversary of the Court’s ruling in Olmstead, COPAA and partners issued a statement condemning DOJ’s recent interpretation of the law. Calling the interpretation illogical, harmful, and pernicious, they said, “The administration’s efforts to deny civil rights to people with disabilities cannot be carried out through DOJ memorandums nor by executive order. This action demonstrates the administration’s clear intent to misapply the law against the rights of individuals with disabilities.”
Special ed, civil rights are largely leaving Education Department
NPR
Two of the U.S. Department of Education’s biggest responsibilities will shift to other federal agencies: safeguarding student civil rights and administering programs for students with disabilities. The Trump administration said Tuesday it will move much of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). OSERS manages programs that support students with disabilities, offering guidance and oversight to ensure states follow the landmark Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a law that guarantees disabled students access to an equitable public education. The administration announced it would also move much of the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). OCR’s staff of civil rights lawyers are tasked with protecting students in K-12 schools and universities from discrimination based on disability, gender, race and national origin. OCR has been in tumult for months, targeted repeatedly by the Trump administration for staff cuts, then reversals of those cuts.
Parents fear fallout from special education oversight changes
Chalkbeat
Education Secretary Linda McMahon had a message for parents of students with disabilities on Tuesday as she announced seismic shifts to federal special education oversight: “I’ve heard you.” In listening sessions and at school visits, McMahon said thousands of parents described struggles to get their children the services to which they’re legally entitled. Moving special education oversight out of the Department of Education, she wrote in an op-ed for Fox News, will reduce red tape and open opportunities. McMahon may have heard parents, many advocates said Tuesday, but she didn’t listen. “It is accurate what they said today, that they spent six months talking to people, but we’ve been very consistent in our message that we didn’t want this to happen,” said Jennifer Coco, interim executive director for the Center for Learner Equity and a parent of students with disabilities.
Education Tax Credit In Spotlight, Treasury Previews Parts of Forthcoming Regulations
Last week, the White House held a press conference to preview forthcoming regulations from the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to guide implementation of the federal education tax credit voucher program. While the final regulations are scheduled for release in September, Treasury has been under pressure to release details so that states opting into the program can prepare to implement the program in January 2027. Treasury’s scripted sneak peek addressed a handful of pressing issues, including highlights about how Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs) will be expected to do business in the state in which they are “authorized to do business” and that they expect to allow a multi-state “path” for SGOs who wish to do business in more than one state. In defining what a school is, Treasury noted that the forthcoming rules will likely define “school” to include public, private, and religious schools that provide K–12 elementary or secondary education, as determined under state law. They also indicated that a home school would be treated as a school if the state treats it as a school under state law. To verify student household income and prevent fraud and abuse, they indicated that states will be directed to use federally recognized documents, such as W-2s and federal tax returns, to determine student eligibility, and that SGOs will be required to undergo annual audits to verify that legal processes for taking in and distributing funds are in place. With regard to use of scholarship funds by qualifying families, they said that consistent with the statute, scholarships may be used to support additive academic tutoring and special needs services, and that future guidance will address those issues in more detail. COPAA has valuable information to share if your governor has ‘opted into’ the program and for those still making a decision.
You can check this map to see your state’s status
Senate READ Act Promotes Literacy & Early Screening for Dyslexia
Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) have introduced the Reading Excellence and Achievement for Development (READ) Act along with Senators Jim Banks (R-IN), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Tim Scott (R-SC), and Mark Kelly (D-AZ). The bill amends the Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grant program and aims to address the national literacy crisis by strengthening and promoting evidence-based literacy instruction, early literacy screening -including for students suspected of having dyslexia- and empowering states, local communities, and parents with more resources.
Three states sue over cancelled special education teacher training grants
K-12 Dive
Attorneys general in three states — California, Rhode Island and Wisconsin — sued the U.S. Department of Education on June 9, saying the agency unlawfully discontinued grants in those states that fund professional development of special education staff and support services for students with disabilities. The lawsuit claims the cancellation of the states’ grants in September and December 2025 was because they conflicted with the Trump administration’s priorities that “include a reflexive hostility to any reference, no matter how fleeting, to diversity, equity, or inclusion.” The Education Department has canceled several other K-12 grant programs over the past year that it said don’t align with Trump administration priorities and executive orders. That includes programs funding mental health supports in schools and professional development for teachers of English learners.
Technology helps some students with disabilities excel. Now it’s leaving schools
NPR
Much of the pivot away from screens in schools has come from parents who are concerned screen use is getting in the way of their children’s learning — an argument Heather Martin hears in her own community in Concord, 30 miles northeast of San Francisco. She shares some of those concerns, but says, “Never once in the conversation has there been a discussion, except for me bringing it up with the other parents, about kids with disabilities.” Advocates worry those students are also being left out of the national conversation. “My concern is that that’s a really fast period of time for this to happen,” says Lindsay Jones, CEO of the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), an education research nonprofit that focuses on making learning environments accessible. Jones points out that some of these laws do make exceptions to restrictions on screens for students with disabilities — often a line in the text mentions assistive technology. But she says that should be the bare minimum and worries many policy proposals are “a very blunt instrument.”
Rethinking the Debate Over Rising Disability Accommodations in Higher Education
American Bar Association
Recent pieces in the media, including The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic, have reported on the dramatic rise in disability accommodations at elite colleges—with much of the increase tied to conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, and depression and extended time on exams as the most common accommodation. Some elite colleges report that roughly a quarter to over a third of students are registered with disability services. In legal education, available data and institutional estimates suggest that approximately one in five students receive accommodations, most commonly extra time on exams.
These pieces also highlight concerns raised by some commentators about access to accommodations, institutional incentives, and the evolving definition of disability, as well as debates over the high rates of accommodations, time limits, and fairness in assessment. However, a closer look suggests that commentators may be asking the wrong questions.
Common Sense Media Launches Youth AI Safety Institute
Common Sense Media has launched the Youth AI Safety Institute, an independent research and testing organization focused on ensuring that AI products used by children and teens are safe and developmentally appropriate. The initiative comes as AI use among young people grows rapidly, with many teenagers regularly using AI companions and homework tools. The Institute will create safety standards, develop open-source evaluation tools for AI companies, independently test AI products, and publicly share results to increase transparency and accountability. Its model is similar to independent vehicle crash testing: evaluating products against clear safety benchmarks and helping families understand which tools are safer.
Read the press announcement here.
Ed Dept wants to end some IDEA data collections. How did stakeholders respond?
K-12 Dive
A U.S. Department of Education proposal to remove certain data collections for racial disparities in special education has drawn opposition from special education organizations, disability rights advocacy groups and a coalition of state attorneys general. The Education Department, in a March 23 Federal Register notice, sought public comment on proposed changes to the federally required State Performance Plans and Annual Performance Reports for special education. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, each state must develop these documents to evaluate their efforts to implement IDEA requirements and detail how it will make improvements. The plans and reports include indicators that measure student and family outcomes and that help evaluate compliance with IDEA requirements.
Specifically, the department has suggested eliminating data collections used in these reports for:
- Significant discrepancies in suspension and expulsion rates for students with disabilities.
- Significant discrepancies in suspension and expulsion for students with disabilities by race and ethnicity, and policies contributing to those discrepancies.
- Disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in specific disability categories that result from inappropriate identification.
In its notice, the Education Department said it wants to reduce state data collection burdens by better aligning the reporting process with IDEA statutory requirements, eliminating duplicative reporting, and streamlining reporting. The department estimated the changes would save about three hours in paperwork burden for each state and territory.
Some 313 comments were submitted before the public comment period ended on May 22
Screen time limits call for nuance, disability advocates say
K-12 Dive
Amid growing calls to scale back screen time in schools, some organizations and education researchers are urging a more nuanced approach that considers the quality and purpose of technology — particularly for students with disabilities who rely on assistive technology for learning, communication and health reasons. Limiting screen time in schools could hinder access to devices that students with disabilities rely on for individualized services and accommodations, experts say. Denise Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, said her organization continues to hear that students with disabilities have difficulty accessing the assistive technology they need.
“Any blanket policy runs the risk for further exasperating that challenge and could run afoul of” the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Marshall said in an email to K-12 Dive in April. The access barriers to assistive technology have always been there, she said, but they have “gotten slightly worse” since some districts have implemented policies limiting technology use.
How much do schools spend on special education? Feds aim to find out
Disability Scoop
For the first time in more than two decades, federal officials are moving forward with plans to find out just how much schools across the nation are spending on students with disabilities. The U.S. Department of Education is taking steps to green-light what’s known as the National Special Education Spending Study. “The study will produce estimates for what is spent on special education services for students with disabilities (SWDs), both overall and by disability category, including expenditures made by states, districts, and schools,” the agency’s Institute of Education Sciences said in a request for clearance from the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The study “will provide policymakers and special education administrators with an up-to-date understanding of the key factors that influence special education spending, what this spending pays for, and to what extent federal appropriations from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA) cover special education spending,” officials said.
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12 Students with Disabilities Were Left Out of Their High School Yearbook
People
Twelve students with disabilities were left out of their high school yearbook.
The teens were omitted from Chapel Hill High School’s yearbook this year, according to WRAL. Parent Krista Caraway learned of the omission when she discovered that her two children with disabilities were not included in the memorial book for the North Carolina school. “[My son] called me around 1:30, 2:00, very upset, and he said, ‘I’m coming home,’ which is very unlike him. And he said, ‘I’m not in it,’ ” she told WRAL. Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools later confirmed to WRAL that those who were left out of the yearbook were students with disabilities. The school district said they were “inadvertently” left out, and the error was attributed to an internal procedure.
The school district said they were “inadvertently” left out, and the error was attributed to an internal procedure. The affected students are expected to receive updated yearbooks, a spokesperson for the school told the outlet. News and Observer reported that the school is also making insert pages available for others.
Senate Hearing Focuses on Charter Schools, Highlights Special Education
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee held a hearing last Wednesday titled, “Meeting the Individual Needs of All Students: The Role of Charter Schools.” As Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA) gaveled in, his opening remarks focused on the need for parents to exercise school choice and the Committee’s responsibility to ensure such choices exist. He welcomed two majority witnesses: Debbie Vaughn, co-founder of Lakes and Bridges Charter School in Easley, South Carolina, and parent of two children with dyslexia; and Moranda Jackson, a parent and teacher assistant at GEO Prep in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Ms. Vaughn’s testimony highlighted that her children with dyslexia could not access needed services through the traditional public school, which led her to co-found a specialized charter school for children with dyslexia. She emphasized the role of the Charter School Program (CSP) funding that the federal government provides to states to help launch new charter schools and described some challenges a school faces as CSP funding dissipates over time. Ms. Jackson shared how the GEO ‘dual enrollment’ model allowed three of her children to complete associate degrees before entering post-secondary education, noting that one daughter had just spoken as valedictorian. Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) introduced the minority witness, Jennifer Coco, Esq., Interim Executive Director of the Center for Learner Equity (CLE). Ms. Coco discussed the organization’s work to remove systemic barriers that exclude students with disabilities from high-quality learning opportunities so families have true access to choices and robust support in public charter schools. She presented recommendations for Congress to consider, including fully funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), funding all K-12 and IDEA programs, and preserving the Department of Education, including the Office for Civil Rights and the Office of Special Education Programs. Several Senators attended and discussed the themes of education funding, helping students with disabilities access their special education services, IDEA full funding, and the difference a well-resourced charter school with trained leaders and staff can make for students.