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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