As the U.S. Department of Education accelerates efforts to dismantle the agency, the implications for students with disabilities remain murky.
The agency said that it reached two new agreements late last month to transfer management of education-related programs to other federal departments. The deals follow seven so-called “interagency agreements” last year.
Despite Trump administration officials repeatedly indicating that they intend to move oversight of special education to another agency, the program is not part of the newly announced partnerships. Neither is the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, which handles disability discrimination complaints. The Education Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the current status of both.
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Instead, the latest agreements, or IAAs, will see the Department of Health and Human Services help manage programs related to safety and security of schools and the Department of State take over a reporting portal for foreign gifts to institutions of higher education.
“As we continue to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states, our new partnerships with the State Department and HHS represent a practical step toward greater efficiency, stronger coordination, and meaningful improvement,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said of the new agreements.
McMahon and President Donald Trump have said they want to close the Education Department, but Congress has not shown an appetite for that plan. The agreements are widely viewed as a way to sidestep lawmakers and whittle away at the agency.
The additional IAAs announced last week suggest that the Trump administration is undeterred by language in the explanatory statement for a recent federal spending package, which indicated that no authorities exist for the Education Department to transfer its responsibilities to other federal agencies.
“The language in the recent funding package did not have much ‘teeth,’ so we are not surprised to see more IAAs,” said Robyn Linscott, director of education and family policy at The Arc of the United States. “We still fully anticipate a move of (the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services) out of the Department of Education.”
Trump said last year that oversight of “special needs” programs would shift to HHS. Since that time, Education Department officials have said that they are working to strike a deal to reassign special education, but no details have emerged.
However, McMahon was transparent when she met with disability advocates late last year, according to Jacqueline Rodriguez, CEO of the National Center for Learning Disabilities.
“The secretary made clear to us, leaders of disability rights organizations, in our December in-person meeting that moving OSERS to another agency would happen under her leadership and that it was a question of which agency and when, not if,” Rodriguez said.
