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.