Federal Legislation & News
in Special Education
HELP Committee Hearing on Literacy and School Choice Includes IDEA-Centric Points
On Wednesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Subcommittee on Education and the American Family held a hearing, Choice, and Literacy: Empowering Families for Better Educational Results. In his opening statement, Subcommittee Chair Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) promoted the recently passed private school voucher provision in H.R. 1 and pointed to school choice as a solution to failing schools. He also highlighted the science of reading as a solution to poor National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores. Ranking Member Lisa Blunt-Rochester (D-DE) countered private school choice, calling for greater innovation in public schools as the solution. Underscoring exclusionary admission policies in private schools based on disability, religion, gender identity, and more, she called school choice “the school’s choice.” Anne Wicks, George W. Bush Institute, underscored the imperative of implementing the science of reading, asserting that rigorous research, high-quality teacher preparation, and professional development for educators already in the field are foundational to effective implementation. Tyler Barnett, CEO of New Schools for Alabama, and Ginny Gentles, Director of Education Freedom and Parental Rights, Defense of Freedom Institute, highlighted the value of school choice, respectively. Richard Barrera, Board Vice President, San Diego Unified School District, highlighted ways that his district has positively impacted academic achievement and called for greater investments in public education. During a question-and-answer session, Republicans uplifted witnesses’ positions on the science of reading and school choice. Democrats focused largely on special education, calling for the full funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and criticizing private school vouchers because of the lack of federal oversight and implementation of federal civil rights laws. Full Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-LA) used his time to discuss how to improve screening and education for people with dyslexia.
Senator Hirono Hosts K-12 Education Spotlight Forum
As part of a series planned to spotlight how actions taken by Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the White House Office of Management and Budget have and continue to impact K-12 schools, students, educators, and other stakeholders, Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) hosted a forum, Robbing Our Students’ Futures: The Indefensible Attacks on Public Education. With Hirono at the helm, Senate Democrats invited speakers Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers; Princess Moss, VP, National Education Association; Denise Forte, CEO, The Education Trust; Aaron Philip Dworkin, CEO, National Summer Learning Association; and Dr. Jacqueline Rodriguez CEO, National Center for Learning Disabilities to discuss ongoing and emerging issues of concern. Together, the panel and Senators engaged in a discussion about the status of the workforce at the U.S. Department of Education (ED), proposed cuts in the White House Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 budget, private school vouchers, teacher shortages, as well as student/community impacts – including that some districts have shut down summer school programs as well as frozen hiring due to FY 2025 funds being withheld by ED. “There is nothing normal about what this Administration is doing,” stated Hirono. “Millions of children and their families are relying upon all of us to get out of our silos and work together to stop these dangerous actions.” Seven Senators participated, including Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who shared results from the report she released last week.
Pay Teachers Act Reintroduced in Senate; New Section Supports Paraprofessionals
Last Thursday, Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reintroduced the Pay Teachers Act, a bill that would set a minimum teacher salary of $60,000. At a press event, Sanders cited economic statistics that underscore the undervaluing of the profession, including that 40 percent of teachers work an additional job. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) joined the event to highlight a new provision in the bill, which would set minimum wages and salaries for paraprofessionals and education support personnel at $30 hourly and $45,000 annually, respectively. The Pay Teachers Act also sets increased authorization levels for key K-12 and educator preparation programs, tripling Title I, Rural Education, and Impact Aid, and significantly increasing the authorization for Personnel Preparation within IDEA Part D, the Teacher Quality Partnership, and Hawkins Centers of Excellence.
Trump administration releases billions in frozen money for schools
Chalkbeat
The Trump administration will release billions in frozen education funds after widespread outcry, including from Republican members of Congress, about the devastating impacts. U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, announced Friday on the social media platform X that the funds would be released. Education Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications Madi Biedermann confirmed the news. The White House Office for Management and Budget has completed its review, Biedermann said in an email, and told the Education Department to release the money. “The agency will begin dispersing funds to states next week,” she said.
The Trump administration notified states on June 30 that they would be holding back roughly $6.8 billion in education funds that were due to arrive on July 1. That money includes funding for services related to English learners, migrant students, teacher training, and enrichment and afterschool programs, and adult education. An OMB spokesperson said the money was under review for alignment with Trump administration priorities, and that some money had gone to support a left-wing agenda, a charge that districts and states denied. Republican members of Congress signed onto a public letter calling for the money to be released. Democratic attorneys general and governors sued, demanding that the money be restored.
Ed Department flags more states for failing to meet special education requirements
Disability Scoop
Fewer states are meeting their obligations under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, federal officials say, with most deficient multiple years in a row. The U.S. Department of Education said that just 19 states qualify as “meets requirements” for serving students with disabilities ages 3 to 21, down from 20 last year. The agency labeled all other states as “needs assistance.” The determinations, released late last month, are the result of an annual review that’s mandated under IDEA. The Education Department is required to assess each state’s progress in meeting the law’s expectations and assigns them to one of four categories — meets requirements, needs assistance, needs intervention, or needs substantial intervention.
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As Nation marks 35th anniversary of the ADA, advocates warn Of backslide
Disability Scoop
More than three decades after the passage of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act, advocates worry progress is slipping amid attacks on disability rights and uncertainty over the future of services and supports. Saturday will mark 35 years since President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA. The legislation, which passed with broad bipartisan support, was the first comprehensive civil rights law in the world for people with disabilities, barring discrimination in education, transportation, employment, voting, and other areas of public life. “The ADA has helped make our country more inclusive and accessible in all aspects of life,” said Alison Barkoff, a health law and policy professor at George Washington University who previously led the federal Administration for Community Living. “It has helped move our society from one where segregating people with disabilities was the default to one where most disabled people and their families have an expectation of inclusion in schools, workplaces, and the broader community.” But despite the transformative changes brought by the ADA, Barkoff and other advocates say the law’s promise is far from fulfilled, and they’re concerned that the nation could backslide.
More than a third of homeschool families also use public schools, new data shows
The 74
The pandemic gave America’s parents a taste of homeschooling, whether they wanted it or not. Many discovered their children were better suited for learning outside traditional schools and stuck with it. Others said schools were pushing “leftist indoctrination” and wanted to teach their own values. These parents help to explain why homeschooling doubled during the pandemic and shows no sign of retreating to pre-COVID rates. But that doesn’t mean those families have completely left public schools behind, according to the latest data from researchers at Johns Hopkins University. More than a third of families with at least one homeschooled child also have a student enrolled in a traditional district school. Another 9% of homeschoolers have a child in a charter.
Families often turn to homeschooling after struggling to get adequate services in the public system for children with disabilities. Education savings accounts — public funds that pay for private school tuition or homeschooling costs — have made that decision even easier. Angela Faber pulled her youngest child, who has autism, out of the Deer Valley Unified School District near Phoenix during the pandemic. Remote learning had allowed Faber to see up close the extent of her daughter’s delays. She was in fourth grade, but reading at a kindergarten level and getting just 30 minutes of extra help each week. With state funds, her daughter now learns at home with a private teacher and receives horseback riding therapy, which helps with balance, coordination, and focus.
COPAA and fellow advocacy groups file an amicus brief with Ninth Circuit urging affirmance of lower court’s correct ruling on IDEA statute of limitations
COPAA, along with the California Association for Parent-Child Advocacy and Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, filed an amicus brief last week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in J.R. v. Ventura Unified School District. COPAA and its fellow amici urged the court to affirm the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, which correctly interpreted the statute of limitations in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) as starting to run “when the parents knew or should have known about the facts which give rise to their cause of action (discovery rule), not when the events occurred (occurrence rule).”
In this case, the parent did not learn that her son’s school district had not complied with its obligation under the IDEA to fully and appropriately evaluate her child until a later private evaluation diagnosed him with autism. As COPAA and its fellow amici assert in the brief, “[t]he district court correctly concluded that the challenges borne by parents do not include taking on the burden of ensuring that the school district complies with its statutory obligation to evaluate in all areas of suspected disability.” A timely, comprehensive evaluation as required by the IDEA is essential to avoid harmful delays in needed interventions and services.
COPAA Informs Senate Report: Education At Risk
On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) released Education At Risk: Frontline Impacts of Trump’s War on Students, which included results from a COPAA survey detailing how the Administration’s actions that target the U.S. Department of Education (ED) harm access to civil rights protections for students with disabilities. “COPAA was honored to work with Senator Warren to conduct a survey of our nationwide membership to determine the impacts of the Administration’s actions on children with disabilities and their families,” noted COPAA CEO Denise Marshall. “The feedback was overwhelmingly clear as 95 percent said that the impacts are already being felt, and that actions have already instilled and created fear and confusion, especially a s it relates to a parent’s ability to file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and whether to expect OCR to process and/or investigate the complaint.” The report cites that the Administration has eliminated hundreds of millions in federal funding for education programs, fired nearly half the department’s staff, and attempted to illegally shift core responsibilities to other agencies. The report also warns that the dismantling of the OCR leaves over 46 million students without proper protection and that cuts to the Institute of Education Sciences threaten families’ access to critical school data. The report also notes that the proposal to transfer all requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to the Department of Health and Human Services risks placing 8 million students with disabilities in a health-focused agency that is not equipped to support state and district implementation of a law designed to promote educational access and opportunity for students with disabilities. “Parents and advocates especially do not want the proposed cuts or block-granting of general and special education funding, or to move IDEA to another agency,” Marshall concluded. “We will continue to communicate with federal policymakers about the services, resources, programs, training, and supports that states and districts need to ensure they can meet the needs of students with disabilities in our nation’s schools.”
COPAA Joins 600 Organizations Urging ED to Release K-12 Funding
In an ongoing campaign designed to compel Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to release nearly $7 billion in federal K-12 education funding to states and school districts, this week, COPAA joined with more than 600 nonpartisan local, state, and national organizations representing communities, school districts, educators, families and learners across every state and D.C. to request Secretary McMahon and the Director of the White Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to immediately release the funds. Summarizing the impact across educational spheres, the advocacy letter states, “Withholding these funds sabotages the education and wellbeing of learners in all districts and all states in our country, regardless of their political affiliation or representation….We request the funds be immediately released.” Also, last week, the Rhode Island Attorney General led 24 states and the District of Columbia to sue the U.S. Department of Education over the abrupt pause, contending that the funding freeze violates the Constitution and federal laws. In an unprecedented move, Senate Republicans also joined when 10 Senators wrote and urged the Administration to release the K-12 funds, noting, ”The decision to withhold this funding is contrary to [the President’s] goal of returning K-12 education to the states…Withholding this funding denies states and communities the opportunity to pursue localized initiatives to support students and their families.” As COPAA has previously reported, the K-12 funds being withheld are meant to support districts and schools’ after-school/summer school programs, English instruction for nonnative speakers, teacher training/professional learning, arts, science/technology/mathematics (STEM) programs, and state-led adult literacy programs. As of July 21, OMB announced that it will release the $1.3 billion in funding meant for after-school and summer programming with “guardrails” to ensure funds comply with current executive orders.
Ed department layoffs prompt worries about future of special education
Disability Scoop
The Trump administration is moving forward with sweeping plans to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, a move advocates say will disproportionately affect students with disabilities. A Supreme Court order earlier this week cleared the way for the Education Department to lay off nearly 1,400 employees, which would leave the agency with about half the number of workers it had at the start of the year.
Already, advocates say that students with disabilities have been affected by changes at the Education Department under Trump. “We know these deep cuts have impacted the civil rights investigations, and it appears they are dismissing many complaints,” said Denise S. Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, or COPAA, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of students with disabilities and their families. In addition, she said that cuts will “negatively affect data collection and training.”
Trump’s Education Department is resolving fewer civil rights cases
AP News
The Trump administration insists it hasn’t wavered in its duty to protect the civil rights of America’s children even as it dismantles the Education Department. Yet its own data shows the agency has resolved far fewer civil rights cases than in past years despite families filing more complaints. The Education Department’s civil rights branch lost nearly half its staff amid mass layoffs in March, raising questions about its ability to address a deep backlog of complaints from students alleging discrimination based on disability, sex or race. Pressed on the issue in June, Education Secretary Linda McMahon denied a slowdown. “Not only are we reducing the backlog, but we are keeping up with the current amount with a reduced staff because we are doing it efficiently,” McMahon said at a Senate budget hearing.
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.
Keep special education with Education Department, former officials say
K-12 Dive
A bipartisan group of former federal special education officials has sent a letter to Congress urging increased funding for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). The letter, signed by 11 former OSEP directors and assistant secretaries dating back to the Reagan administration, argues that OSEP’s current staffing and resources are insufficient to meet its growing responsibilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). These responsibilities now include overseeing state implementation, providing technical assistance, and ensuring accountability and equity for students with disabilities.
The group also supports proposed reforms by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona that would shift the office’s focus from procedural compliance to improving student outcomes. However, they emphasize that such changes cannot be successful without a meaningful investment in OSEP’s capacity. The letter reflects growing concern that without adequate funding and staffing, the federal government will struggle to fulfill its obligations to the nation’s 7 million students with disabilities.
Administration Rescinds Access to Education Services for Undocumented Children
In a sharp departure from previous federal guidelines, the Administration has announced its intention to roll back eligibility for domestic assistance programs for children and families who are undocumented. Specific to education and citing Executive Order 14218 “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders” the Department of Education (ED) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have put all states on notice that they plan to formally rescind a 1998 interpretation of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) which has been used to allow states to serve undocumented children previously deemed eligible for preschool services through Head Start as well as young adult students participating in career/technical education (CTE), and adult education programs. While HHS has indicated that its new guidance will be released through the official 60-day notice and comment period, ED has requested grantees to verify participant eligibility to ensure compliance. ED also released a new “interpretive rule” that details the interplay between PRWORA and Plyler v. Doe and concludes, “Federal programs administered [by ED] that provide postsecondary education and other similar benefits, including adult education and CTE programs, are “Federal public benefits” subject to the citizenship and immigration verification requirements of PRWORA, so long as such benefits are not protected under Plyler as part of a basic public education.” With an understanding of the potential impacts on students with disabilities, COPAA is examining the new policies and is collaborating with partners to determine whether and how to weigh in with the Administration on this policy position.
Stakeholders and Congressional Democrats Demand Release of Education Funds
Last week, Democrats in Congress demanded action by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to release a hold on nearly $7 billion in K-12 and adult education funds that were due to schools on July 1. “We are shocked by the continued lack of respect for states and local schools,” a letter by Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) and 32 Senate Democrats said, and also indicated that the decision will result in budget cuts in every state and is already having an immediate impact on schools and summer programs. Lawmakers also asserted that the withholding of funds violates the terms of the Fiscal Year 2025 funding law. Similarly, amid concerns about the impacts of withholding federal K-12 education funds from schools, COPAA has signed a letter alongside local, state, and national stakeholders that promotes the immediate release of funds. That letter is timed to go to the Administration later this week. As a reminder, the withholding of K-12 funds, which are authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and were appropriated dollars by Congress in March, includes these ESEA dollars: Title I-C for migrant education ($375 million), Title II-A for professional development ($2.2 billion), Title III-A for English-learner services ($890 million), Title IV-A for academic enrichment ($1.3 billion), and Title IV-B for before- and after-school programs ($1.4 billion). For clarity, federal funds that come to states under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Title I of the ESEA are not impacted and have been disbursed to states.