After an agonizing week in Congress, on Friday, President Trump signed a Fiscal Year 2025 (FY 2025) continuing resolution (CR) into law that funds the government at essentially FY 2024 levels through September 30, 2025. Missing from the CR –and what kept most House and Senate Democrats from supporting it- are spending details (known as line-item spending) for the budget’s largest federally funded programs, including education programs such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Specifically for IDEA, while the CR includes a total of $15.467 billion (which is the same overall total provided in FY 2024), what is missing are the detailed line items indicating how much of that overall total Congress is including for Part B (grants to states, school-age children); Part B 619 (preschool), Part C (infants and toddlers); and Part D (technical assistance, state personnel, parent training, personnel preparation, media and technology etc.). Also missing are details for other education programs and offices such as for the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The crucial issues with this CR -both politically and practically- are the precedent this sets in appropriations, and that without line-item spending details, the Trump Administration is now free to maneuver funds as they wish. 

Within the Department of Education, this flexibility gives the Secretary the ability to level fund, to cut, or [even possibly] to eliminate funds. While technically, it would require an act of Congress to eliminate funding for any of IDEA’s parts, and it would be politically very risky to touch Part B or Part C given that states and agencies rely upon funding to provide services and supports to millions of children and youth with disabilities, the Part D programs are vulnerable. Despite having bipartisan support from Congress for decades, Part D focuses on providing resources and investments in students that this Administration does not seem keen to support including: special education personnel preparation and training by states; special education research to practice initiatives -to support making classrooms, books, materials and technology accessible, inclusive of, and available to students with disabilities-; and, providing training to parents on accessing equitable education programs through IDEA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. In fact, every state has at least one federally funded parent training and information center that is funded out of Part D. Given the heightened need for all of IDEA’s resources, COPAA is monitoring this very closely especially due to the recent decisions made by the Administration to ignore statutory requirements, cancel grants and contracts, fire personnel, close regional offices, and eliminate supports essential to protecting student civil rights and preserving the education ecosystem