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.