Federal Legislation & News
in Special Education
Parents, advocates rally around special education for 50th anniversary of landmark law
WUNC
It’s been 50 years since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was signed into law, and the milestone comes at a time when parents and activists are concerned about funding cuts for services. Rallies were planned outside multiple congressional offices on Friday to call for more adequate funding for special education services and to protest cuts and the dismantling of the Department of Education. A rally held Friday at U.S. Rep. Tim Moore’s office in Cornelius called for continued support. About two dozen people held signs out in the frigid air. Some went inside to officially commemorate IDEA’s anniversary with cupcakes, coffee, and a singing of Happy Birthday. Moore’s office was empty, but they taped a pledge they hope he’ll sign to the door. The pledge calls on Moore to advocate for fully funding the act, keeping it housed at the Department of Education, and resisting cuts to services for students with disabilities.
Ed Department recalls staffers who handle complaints from students with disabilities
Disability Scoop
The U.S. Department of Education is bringing back hundreds of staffers to tackle a backlog of civil rights cases — including complaints of disability discrimination in schools — after keeping them on administrative leave for most of the year. More than 200 employees of the agency’s Office for Civil Rights were among the nearly 1,400 staffers the Education Department tried to lay off in March, but the status of their jobs has been mired in litigation since then. Now, the workers are being told to return to work as soon as next week.
Denise 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, welcomed the Education Department’s move to reinstate staffers in the civil rights office. “We have stated all along that OCR cannot fulfill its obligations on a skeleton staff,” she said. “The fact they are returning them seems to be an acknowledgement that the firings were ill-advised,” Marshall said. It’s important that families and advocates continue filing complaints with the Office for Civil Rights when alleged discrimination occurs.
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As Justice Department priorities shift, concerns about protection of students’ civil rights escalate
Hechinger Report
Within the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is a small office devoted to educational issues, including seclusion, as well as desegregation and racial harassment. The division intentionally chooses cases with potential for high impact and actively monitors places it has investigated to ensure they’re following through with changes. When the Educational Opportunities Section acts, educators and policymakers take notice. Now, however, the Trump administration is wielding the power of the Justice Department in new and, some say, extreme ways. Hundreds of career staffers, including most of those who worked on education cases, have resigned. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights also has been decimated, largely through layoffs. The two offices traditionally have worked closely together to enforce civil rights protections for students. The result is a potentially lasting shift in how the nation’s top law enforcement agency handles issues that affect public school students, including millions who have disabilities.
How one lawyer helped reshape special education at the Supreme Court
Education Week
A new documentary is shining fresh attention on a major special education ruling the U.S. Supreme Court decided last term, spotlighting the lawyer who not only won that case but has played a role in several landmark victories for students with disabilities in recent years. “Supreme Advocacy,” a 40-minute film from Bloomberg Law, pulls back the curtain on how a single case moves through the Supreme Court—from the time it is taken up by the justices through legal briefs, oral arguments, and then a decision. (Released Dec. 2, it is available for free on YouTube.) The filmmakers chose as their subject Roman Martinez, a partner at the firm Latham & Watkins and a rising star of elite appellate specialists who primarily argue before the nation’s highest court.
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COPAA and Partners Express Major Concerns with Federal Dyslexia Bill
COPAA and partners in the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) have sent a letter to Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Representative Erin Houchin (R-IN) to raise concerns and express opposition to the 21st Century Dyslexia Act (S.3010/H.R. 5769) as currently written. The issues raised range from consternation with the timing of a bill that proposes to amend the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) “when oversight and accountability for the nation’s core law that protects students with disabilities is under threat”, along with specific issues regarding the bill’s proposal to add back a mandate for states to use the IQ-discrepancy model as part of a Dyslexia evaluation. While COPAA and allies absolutely share the bill sponsors’ goal -to ensure all students suspected of having Dyslexia are provided early screening, intervention, education services, and eligibility under IDEA as soon as possible- the advocates also told Congress, “[the bill] specifies the IQ-discrepancy diagnostic or ‘severe discrepancy’ model which IDEA already allows…[and] due to years of research and practice –showing that this model lacked both validity and reliability in determining the existence of an SLD, including dyslexia– and, with bipartisan agreement in 2004, Congress eliminated the sole requirement to use this model when evaluating a student suspected of having an SLD.” The letter points out that due to IDEA’s current flexibility, eleven states have eliminated the requirement for districts to use IQ achievement discrepancy and 39 states still allow it. COPAA’s federal policy advisor, Laura Kaloi, who has firsthand experience as a parent with the use of IQ-discrepancy to determine Dyslexia, has written a blog about the need to prevent this particular change to IDEA.
Comments Requested on New Federal Education Tax Credit
The Treasury Department (Treasury) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have released a formal query seeking public comments regarding the implementation of a new individual tax credit created under HR 1, which became law in July. Beginning January 1, 2027, taxpayers in qualified state programs may claim a nonrefundable credit of up to $1,700 for contributions to Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs) that fund elementary and secondary school scholarships for low-and middle-income students. States must opt into the program by sending the IRS a list of SGOs that meet federal requirements before contributions in that state can qualify. Treasury and the IRS plan to issue proposed regulations and are requesting feedback on issues such as state certification of SGOs, state procedures to ensure accurate certifications, and how multi-state or otherwise unique scholarship organizations should be treated. They are also seeking input on reporting and recordkeeping rules for SGOs. Commenters are encouraged to use the Federal e-Rulemaking portal. All comments must be received by December 26, 2025. COPAA is examining the IRS query and will make a decision about commenting this week.
Issue Brief Outlines Trans Student Rights
Titled “Get the Facts: Students’ Rights are Unconditional,” Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE) has published a new issue brief in response to state and federal bills being proposed that run counter to trans student rights. This brief shifts the conversation about parental rights and sex-based accommodations by focusing on students’ rights under federal law and emphasizing why sex-based supports—such as using a student’s affirmed name and pronouns—are essential for the safety and well-being of transgender and nonbinary students. A4TE contends that policies requiring parental permission before schools can follow best practices or offer accommodations conflict with a school’s legal responsibilities. The brief further emphasizes that regardless of a parent’s views about their child’s identity, requiring transgender students to use bathrooms or locker rooms that do not match their gender identity increases their risk of sexual assault and violates established law. It also clarifies that prohibiting staff from using a student’s chosen name and pronouns—or requiring them to use incorrect ones—prevents educators from meeting their legal duty to maintain an environment free from sex-based harassment.
A landmark special education law is 50. Some fear for its future
NPR
Fifty years ago, just after Thanksgiving of 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, the landmark law that created special education as it exists today, and guaranteed all children with disabilities the right to a “free appropriate public education.” Yet, “rather than celebrating progress, we face a crisis,” warned a recent letter to Congress, signed by hundreds of disability, civil rights, and education groups. That crisis, according to the letter, is “the dismantling of the very infrastructure Congress created to ensure children with disabilities could reach their full potential.”
According to court records, the Trump administration fired 121 of 135 employees at OSERS during the recent government shutdown. “We can’t, in our wildest imagination, understand how the secretary can fulfill her obligation under the law with so few staff,” said Denise Marshall, head of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA).
IDEA turns 50 — And so did I. Only one of us is aging gracefully.
CT Examiner
This year, on November 29th, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act—our nation’s promise to children with disabilities—turned 50. I also turned 50 in November. Unlike the IDEA, though, I did not require Congressional reauthorization to get here, though some days my knees might argue otherwise. It’s a strange feeling sharing a milestone birthday with a federal law. When IDEA was born in 1975, students with disabilities were routinely excluded from public schools. My biggest worry at the time was keeping my birthday cake intact while my older siblings plotted its early demise. Half a century later, IDEA has matured into a civil-rights cornerstone that serves approximately seven million children nationwide. And yet, like many 50-year-olds, IDEA is now experiencing what can only be described as an existential crisis. Under the current federal landscape, there is renewed talk of “letting the states decide.” As a lawyer who spends his days battling school districts that already interpret “free appropriate public education” as “the cheapest option possible,” I can assure you: shifting more control to the states is the policy equivalent of handing your 1996 Honda Civic to a 15-year-old because “they’ll figure it out.”
Federal special education staff may get their jobs back. But for how long?
NPR
The Trump administration has fired, or tried to fire, many of the federal staff at the U.S. Department of Education who manage and enforce federal disability law, though Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said federal funding for special education is not at risk. In a November op-ed in USA Today, McMahon wrote that “returning education to the states does not mean the end of federal support for education. It simply means the end of a centralized bureaucracy micromanaging what should be a state-led responsibility.” But, in interviews with 40 parents, educators, disability-rights advocates, subject matter experts and Education Department staffers, NPR heard a growing fear: that the Trump administration’s efforts to cut federal staff and oversight of special education could return the U.S. to a time, before 1975, when some schools denied access or services to children with disabilities.
The challenge of moving special education out of the Education Department
POLITICO
Advocates for children with disabilities — and even some Republican lawmakers — are warning that the federal government needs to preserve its special education programs as the Trump administration moves to dismantle the Education Department.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon has already launched plans to transfer her department’s elementary, technical, and international programs to other agencies. So far, she hasn’t moved to offload the special education programs, which are required by a 50-year-old federal law. But officials have declined to rule out transferring them in the future. That worries advocates who say the move could undermine the federal government’s ability to guarantee children with disabilities get the education they are legally entitled to receive. “While everything isn’t perfect, and many families still struggle to obtain what their children need, we’ve made huge progress in the last 50 years, and we can’t allow the clock to be turned back,” said Stephanie Smith Lee, who served as director of the Office of Special Education Programs under former President George W. Bush.
Damage to come from dismembering the U.S. Dept. of Ed
New America
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) was created to help ensure that every student has access to a high-quality public education. The Trump Administration’s decision last week to move many of our country’s core education programs to other federal agencies will severely hurt its ability to fulfill this goal. In addition to being on questionable legal ground, the administration’s six interagency agreements to “co-manage” education programs will increase inefficiency and create unnecessary confusion. Administering programs to protect students and improve their outcomes requires much more than being a “pass-through” for funding. It requires deep expertise of the evidence on what educational strategies are likely to work and which aren’t. The interagency agreements implicitly acknowledge this by requiring ED staff to provide expertise, oversight, and myriad other support functions to the four agencies where education programs will be moved (the Department of Health & Human Services, the Department of Interior, the Department of Labor, and the Department of State). The back-and-forth required between agencies to execute this plan will detract from the real work of ED, which is to protect students’ rights and provide guidance and support to states, schools, and other educational entities to ensure students have the resources to succeed.
Warren: Trump, McMahon will destroy public education | Opinion
USA Today
Shortly after she was sworn in, I invited Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to my office. I looked her dead in the eye and asked, “Now, I just want to be clear, do you think you can shut down the Department of Education?” She looked straight back at me and said, “No, I don’t have the legal authority to do that.” But here we are. It’s official: Donald Trump and Secretary McMahon are dismantling the Department of Education one piece at a time. This is, in Secretary McMahon’s words, the department’s “final mission.” The assault on the department has come in several directions. On Nov. 18, Secretary McMahon announced that she was transferring major functions of the department to four other federal agencies. This means that programs are being moved into other agencies that have no relevant expertise to be managed by people who know nothing about the issues.
Teacher shortages hinder special education progress. What are the solutions?
K-12 Dive
Special education staff turnover is a constant challenge at Godwin Heights Public Schools in Michigan. Sometimes a special education role will turn vacant just a month or six weeks after the district hired someone because they start and leave so quickly, says Derek Cooley, the district’s special education director. “We used to have staff that would spend their whole careers in special education” at Godwin Heights, Cooley says. “We just don’t see that anymore.” People often enter the special education field because they have family members with disabilities, or they come from a family of public educators, says Cooley. Throughout his own hiring history and over a 20-year education career, he’s noticed this pattern, he says. But what keeps special educators in schools “isn’t just passion,” Cooley says. “It’s also having strong mentoring and coaching, a manageable workload, and practical supports like tuition reimbursement that make the job sustainable and rewarding.”
Family of student with autism wins in the Fifth Circuit in Extended School Year case
On November 21, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit handed down a victory for a student with a disability. You can read the Fifth Circuit decision in North East Independent School District v. I.M. here.
In this case, the parent of a student with autism sought full-summer extended school year services (“ESY”), among other relief, to prevent her son’s documented regression during school breaks. The parent prevailed following a due process hearing, the school district appealed, and the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas affirmed.
The school district appealed the district court’s decision, and the parent again prevailed, with the Fifth Circuit finding that because the school district refused to offer full-summer ESY services, the student’s Individualized Education Program (“IEP”) was insufficiently individualized and the district therefore did not provide the student an appropriate education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). The Fifth Circuit noted that the school district had known the following: the student regressed during school breaks, he benefited from ESY services, half-day summer ESY services for only six weeks was too short a time period given the student’s needs, and the interruption of IEP services during breaks caused the student to regress. Specifically, there was clear evidence that he had regressed in toileting skills and experienced an increase in dangerous elopements following school breaks. The court also determined that the student’s behavioral regression outweighed the academic benefits of his IEP.