Federal Legislation & News
in Special Education
ED Moves to Transfer Programs to Other Federal Agencies, IDEA Spared For Now
On November 18, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced six interagency agreements (IAAs) with four agencies to “break up the federal education bureaucracy, ensure efficient delivery of funded programs, activities, and move closer to fulfilling the President’s promise to return education to the states.” The IAAs shift programs under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to either the Department of Labor or Interior (for all Indian education programs). Programs authorized under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 were not included. The ESEA shift includes the administration and oversight of all ESEA funds and programs, including Titles I-IV, the Charter School Program, Statewide Family Engagement Centers, and others. When asked about the data backing both the lawfulness and strategy, the Secretary stated the IAAs are “proof of concepts.” The response from some Republicans was not positive, as Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) said that Congress created the Department “for very good reason,” and he “will not allow” any alteration…without transparency from Congress. [W]e cannot allow any action that weakens the safeguards, services, or opportunities that families across this country depend on.” Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee noted that the administration’s actions are a way “to circumvent the law…simply because there are not sufficient votes in Congress to eliminate the Department.” Yet, Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) of the House Education and Workforce Committee praised the move. Senate Democrats, including Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murry (D-WA), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), and others spoke out against the IAAs. With few details available, big questions remain about the IAA-related actions, including the timing and staffing of the moves. Additionally, the Department’s timing will complicate negotiations on the Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations bills given the Senate’s bipartisan language in the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Services (Labor-H) protects both ESEA and IDEA programs from being transferred out or obligated to another agency. The House bill has no such language.
COPAA and 60 civil rights allies signed a statement alerting Congress that the Department has exceeded its legal authority in the use of IAAs to move ESEA. We also continue to call upon Congress to conduct oversight hearings regarding these unlawful actions.JOIN with us and send an email to your Senators and Representative.
COPAA and CASE Issue Shared Principles to Affirm Commitment To IDEA
On November 19, COPAA and the Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE) -along with 860 organizations and individual signers- issued a set of Shared Principles to affirm commitment to ensuring that children and youth with disabilities receive the education and support fundamental to their growth and development, and to advance policies and practices that protect the rights of children and youth with disabilities, strengthen families, and support school personnel. The Shared Principles were shared with the media and every member of Congress. COPAA members are invited to sign on to the principles until the end of the year.
House Holds Hearing on Strengthening Skills Pathways Through CTE
Last week, the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education held a hearing titled From Classroom to Career: Strengthening Skills Pathways Through CTE. Witnesses included: Dr. Deb Volzer, Vice President, Workforce Development, SME; Kristi Rice, Cybersecurity Teacher, Spotsylvania County Public Schools; Braden Goetz, Senior Policy Advisor, Center on Education & Labor; and Nicole Gasper, CEO, West Michigan Aviation Academy. In his opening remarks, Subcommittee Chair Kevin Kiley (R-CA) dispelled the idea that every student should attend a traditional college, emphasizing that college doesn’t meet the needs of many young people or the economy. He contended that while college should remain accessible, career and technical education (CTE) offers an equally valuable path toward success. Once undervalued, CTE is now recognized for preparing students for a skills-driven economy through hands-on learning in fields like engineering, health care, and trades. With employers facing millions of unfilled jobs due to skill shortages, presenters emphasized that expanding and modernizing CTE is essential for producing career-ready graduates and strengthening the nation’s economic competitiveness. Each of those giving testimony provided examples of how their programs actively lead to success in the workplace. Mr. Goetz raised the controversial and partisan issue about the recent decision to move CTE programs from within the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to Labor. Specifically, he cited that such a move will inhibit ongoing and needed cross-collaboration between CTE experts and special education experts whose work together helps states and districts improve access to youth and young adults with disabilities.
House Hearing Provides Means for Improving Youth Foster Care System
The Subcommittee on Work and Welfare of the House Committee on Ways and Means held a hearing titled: Work & Welfare Subcommittee Hearing on Leaving the Sticky Notes Behind: Harnessing Innovation and New Technology to Help America’s Foster Youth Succeed.
Speakers discussed ways to harness modern technology and innovation to help America’s foster youth succeed. Each expert stressed key points such as the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies to strengthen personal and institutional connections, ways modernization can help ease the administrative burdens known to reduce direct contact with foster youth, and to identify, support unmet needs, and connect foster youth to necessary services.
Special educators, disability advocates form united front to protect IDEA
K-12 Dive
More than 850 local, state, and national organizations Thursday morning released a joint commitment to support federal special education law and to protest any move that separates services for students with disabilities from the U.S. Department of Education. Coalition members, who also include individual advocates, support keeping the Education Department as an independent agency that is fully staffed and funded to oversee federal laws, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504. The statement comes just days after the Education Department announced it was transferring the management of six core programs to other federal agencies. Special education programming was not part of that announcement, but the Trump administration said it was still exploring that option.
The coalition is led by the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a nonprofit that works to protect the civil rights of children with disabilities, and the Council of Administrators of Special Education, a professional membership organization. The signers — who include educators, disability rights advocates, parents, attorneys, local disability organizations, and others — are uniting against what they call threats to fragment federal services for students with disabilities. COPAA CEO Denise Marshall said in the same statement, “With the current policy, funding, dismantling of the Department of Education, and other threats to the IDEA, our organizations have forged an essential partnership.”
Education Department’s role is bigger than critics realize | Opinion
USA Today
When U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon claimed in USA TODAY that the recent government shutdown showed “how little the Department of Education will be missed,” she overlooked the damage done to the nation’s students, especially those with disabilities, who learn and think differently. For students with disabilities, the impacts of the shutdown were real and immediate:
- Civil rights investigations were paused or delayed.
- Grant reviews and awards stalled.
- Technical assistance to states – including 18 states with new special education directors – halted at a critical moment.
These are not disposable bureaucratic tasks, as McMahon claimed. They are federal responsibilities that ensure students receive what the law promises.
The Education Department gave another agency power to distribute its money. It hasn’t gone well.
POLITICO
The stumbles of an early Trump administration experiment to carve up the Education Department risks undercutting the president’s more dramatic demolition plan for the agency. The Labor Department began taking control of federal career, technical, and adult education money as part of a pact this spring with the education agency that was intended to centralize and streamline government workforce programs. Critics say a combination of technical problems, communication lapses, bureaucratic hurdles, and scant preparation related to new grant payment systems snarled the process of distributing money from a $1.4 billion program for career and technical education initiatives for schools and local governments. The record-breaking government shutdown didn’t help, either. Now state education leaders, Democratic lawmakers, and former Biden administration officials say recent issues with distributing funds are likely a preview of bigger problems that could unfold when the Trump administration starts to outsource more of the Education Department’s work to other agencies.
With crossed wires and late funding, some call Education Department move to Labor a ‘muddle’
The 74
The Education Department last week unveiled six interagency agreements with four other federal agencies as part of the Trump administration’s plan to wind down an agency that it argues was unconstitutional to begin with. “Let’s make sure that that grant money that’s coming from the federal government is getting in [states’] hands as efficiently as possible,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said during a White House briefing Thursday. “We don’t want teachers having to spend their time and money on regulatory compliance.” But for some state directors like Kinkaid, the result has been frustrating. The administration, he said, has “asked state CTE programs to essentially fly for the past six months without air traffic control.”
Lawmakers heard about the rocky start last week. “Operationally, it is a muddle,” Braden Goetz told the House education committee. He spent 26 years in the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education and now works as a senior policy advisor at New America, a left-leaning think tank. “I don’t understand how the work gets done. When Secretary McMahon makes decisions, does she call the Secretary of Labor and ask her to communicate that down the chain?”
Fragmented federal education plan could harm students with disabilities, advocates warn
Education Week
Parceling out the U.S. Department of Education’s responsibilities to other agencies puts students with disabilities at risk by weakening federal enforcement of the laws that protect them and severing important connections between offices that help states and districts meet their needs, advocates said Wednesday. They raised those fears a day after the Education Department announced plans to offload the duties of many of its offices to other federal agencies. Those offices include elementary and secondary education, which will see core responsibilities such as administering Title I and other key funding streams shift to the U.S. Department of Labor under an interagency agreement made without congressional approval.
“The separation and fragmentation of K–12 oversight, funding, and technical assistance is a direct threat to the integrated systems that are designed to serve all children in our nation’s schools,” said Denise Marshall, CEO of The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. “We continue to call on Congress to provide oversight in the form of a hearing as soon as possible.”
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Concerns raised as teachers increasingly use AI to write IEPs
Disability Scoop
The number of teachers using AI to develop individualized education programs, or IEPs, for students with disabilities is surging, but so too are questions about what role the technology should play. Among licensed special education teachers, 57% said they used AI to help with IEPs or 504 plans during the 2024-2025 school year, according to a new report from the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology. That’s up 18% from just one year prior. Special educators reported using AI to identify trends in student progress, summarize the content of IEPs or 504 plans, choose specific accommodations, write the narrative portion of the plans, or, in some cases, to write plans in full, the report found.
The brief warns that educators risk running afoul of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which requires that IEPs be unique and individualized documents, as well as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, and state-level privacy laws, particularly if they use freely available AI tools like ChatGPT. In addition, the Center for Democracy & Technology report raises concerns about accuracy, bias, and other issues with information generated through AI.
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Congressional Democrats Decry Dismantling of Disability Labor Protections
A coalition of 56 Democratic lawmakers, led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Reps Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Lateefah Simon (D-CA), sent a letter to Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer condemning what they describe as the “most significant rollback of disability employment protections” in decades. The lawmakers criticized Chavez-DeRemer for proposing to eliminate key provisions of Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act—such as hiring goals, data collection, and enforcement mechanisms for federal contractors—while also cutting staff and budgets for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs and the Office of Disability Employment. They argued these changes would reduce accountability, limit job opportunities for people with disabilities, and increase dependence on government benefits. The letter further denounced the continued use of subminimum wage certificates under Section 14(c) and the removal of equal opportunity rules in apprenticeship programs, accusing Chavez-DeRemer of dismantling bipartisan progress that has expanded economic inclusion for disabled workers. The lawmakers requested a formal explanation by December 11, 2025.
WH Issues EO to Modernize Foster Care System
The White House (WH) has issued an executive order (EO) titled Fostering the Future for American Children and Families. The EO directs federal agencies to modernize the child welfare system and expand support for young people in or leaving foster care. It tasks the Department of Health and Human Services with improving state-level data collection; updating outdated reporting requirements; advancing the use of modern technology and analytics in foster care management; and publishing annual scorecards measuring state performance on key child welfare outcomes. It also launches a “Fostering the Future” initiative to build public–private partnerships that expand education, employment, and support services for current and former foster youth, including the creation of an online platform, greater flexibility in education vouchers, and better use of returned federal funds. Additionally, the order calls for increasing collaboration with faith-based organizations and ensuring they are not improperly excluded from child-welfare programs. All actions must follow existing law and are subject to available funding.
Special education: Department of Education cuts are leaving kids with disabilities behind
Slate
When reduction-in-force notices went out to hundreds of Department of Education employees as part of the shutdown, more than 100 of these DOE workers were part of the team that oversaw special ed around the country. They ensured resources got distributed equitably, and had been doing that since the ’70s. Now, they are simply not there. A court has put these firings on hold, but that hasn’t made parents feel much better. Pepper Stetler knows this well. Stetler is a professor who writes about education and disability, and her 13-year-old daughter, Louisa, has Down syndrome. It’s not like special ed in this country has been perfect. But for 50 years, it has been there. The federal government has acted as a watchdog, stepping in if states fail to deliver the right to education to disabled children. But even with the government set to reopen, many of the cuts to special education may remain.
Federal special education staff may get their jobs back. But for how long?
OPB
The deal Congress reached to re-open the federal government requires the Trump administration to reinstate federal workers who were fired in October, including those charged with overseeing the nation’s special education laws. But it’s not clear how long they’ll be back. As NPR has reported, the Office for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) inside the U.S. Department of Education is the central nervous system for programs that support students with disabilities. It not only offers guidance to families but also oversees state compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). OSERS can’t do its job without staff, and, according to a new Education Department filing, the office lost 121 of its 135 employees in the October reduction-in-force. That matters because, while Wednesday’s funding agreement will return those workers to “employment status” as of Sept. 30, there appears to be little protecting them after Jan. 30, when that provision expires. “We are concerned special education will cease to exist,” says Jacqueline Rodriguez, CEO of the National Center for Learning Disabilities.
As Government Reopens, Ed Department Brings Back Fired Special Education Staffers
Disability Scoop
A deal to end the nation’s longest-ever government shutdown is reversing plans to gut the U.S. Department of Education’s special education office and providing funds for other disability programs — at least temporarily. President Donald Trump signed legislation late Wednesday to fund the government, bringing the 43-day shutdown to an end. The spending package funds some things for the year, but will ensure spending for most federal agencies — including the vast majority of disability programs — only through Jan. 30. The agreement also requires the Trump administration to reverse layoffs issued during the shutdown and precludes any similar firings through Jan. 30.
Disability advocates warned that dismantling the special education office — and the resulting lack of federal oversight — put the rights guaranteed to students under IDEA at risk. Already, they said they were hearing that some local officials were asking which parts of IDEA could be ignored since no one in Washington was paying attention.
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