Over half of states are not living up to their obligations under federal special education law, with many receiving a failing grade from the U.S. Department of Education multiple years in a row.
Just 20 states earned a “meets requirements” designation from the Education Department this year for serving students with disabilities ages 3 to 21 under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Meanwhile, 26 states were labeled “needs assistance,” including 23 which have received that mark for two or more consecutive years. Another four states and Washington, D.C. were listed as “needs intervention.”
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The determinations released this summer are the result of a review mandated under IDEA and are based on data from the 2024 fiscal year. Per the law, the Education Department assesses each state’s progress in meeting the law’s expectations annually and assigns them to one of four categories — meets requirements, needs assistance, needs intervention or needs substantial intervention.
The outcome carries significant weight. If states do not achieve the “meets requirements” status for two or more years, the Education Department must take enforcement action, which can include requiring the state to access technical assistance or directing funds to the areas deemed inadequate, among other measures.
This year’s results are not all that different than those from recent years. Last year, the Education Department found that only 19 states qualified for the “meets requirements” status and there were 20 states that received that designation the year prior.
However, the determinations come as the Education Department is planning to shift many responsibilities of its Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, or OSERS, to the Department of Health and Human Services, prompting questions about the future of special education oversight.
“IDEA is a federal guarantee, and a child’s access to special education shouldn’t depend on where they live. But these determinations show that implementation is still uneven across the country,” said Robyn Linscott, director of education and family policy at The Arc of the United States. “That should be a call to strengthen federal oversight, not weaken it or move special education responsibilities to an agency that wasn’t built to oversee education. Students with disabilities and their families need clearer accountability, more technical assistance and stronger investment so their rights are protected wherever they live.”
The states designated as “meets requirements” include Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
An analysis from The Advocacy Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on improving the lives of people with disabilities, shows that just five states — Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — have received the “meets requirements” designation for each of the last 13 years. However, the group notes that the methodology used by the Education Department makes it “mathematically impossible” for all states to meet that standard “due to the heavy use of scoring based on rank-ordering of states.”
A separate Education Department determination of IDEA programs for children from birth through age 2, found that 22 states qualified as “meets requirements,” while 27 states and Washington, D.C. were labeled “needs assistance,” half of which achieved that designation for two or more years in a row. One state — Louisiana — was designated as “needs intervention.”
