President Donald Trump’s administration is further dismantling the Education Department by moving oversight of special education and civil rights to other agencies.
The Associated Press reports that the Department of Justice will take on enforcement of civil rights in education, and the Department of Health and Human Services will oversee special education. That means the vast majority of what have been Education Department functions now have been assigned to other agencies.
Civil rights and special education advocates say the changes will create uncertainty around services relied upon by millions of students and families.
“As is too often the case, traditionally underserved students — including students with disabilities, Black and Latino students, multilingual learners, students from low-income backgrounds, and students in rural communities — will bear the greatest burden created by this reckless decision, to which the disability and civil rights communities have already been vehemently opposed,” said a statement from EdTrust, a think tank that advocates for educational equity.
The Education Department already has offloaded some of its programs through 10 earlier internal agreements, but the agencies involved in the latest announcement -- the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services and the Office for Civil Rights -- were among the most closely watched.
The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services manages billions of dollars in grants and oversees state compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The Office for Civil Rights investigates complaints of discrimination at the nation’s schools and universities.
The agreements are scattering education programs to agencies that do not have the expertise to manage them, says U.S. Sen. Patty Murray
“Instead of helping kids get a great education, this administration is spending its time, energy, and taxpayer resources fixated on where employees sit and illegally trying to shutter the Department of Education,” Murray said.
The transfer of special education to Health and Human Services alarmed disability advocates, who say oversight of whether schools are adequately serving children with disabilities is best handled by education experts — not medical experts.
