Secretary of Education Linda McMahon took advantage of the federal government shutdown to impose additional cuts to the Department of Education. The deepest cuts were imposed on the Office for Civil Rights. Another office that was hard hit was the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.
During the draconian budget-cutting days of Elon Musk and DOGE, the Education Department’s personnel was almost cut in half, from 4,000 to 2,400. DOE is one of the smallest Departments in the federal government. The latest reduction-in-force cuts terminated the jobs of 466 employees of the Department, including the remaining 20 or so employees overseeing special education programs.
Project 2025 called for all funding streams–especially Title I and special education–to be turned over to the states as block grants, which the states could spend as they choose. Eliminating federal oversight is a significant step towards that goal.
The Education Law Center of Pennsylvania released this statement:
Widespread layoffs in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) have effectively eviscerated federal enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which requires that the U.S. Department of Education bear the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that local school districts and charter schools comply with special education laws.
OSERS, which includes the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), provides essential guidance, reviews and monitors state compliance with federal special education laws, and issues corrective action to states. The impact of its dismantling cannot be overstated: without staff to oversee legal compliance and equitably distribute federal funds, children with disabilities will lack critical federal protections, and become more likely to be excluded and left behind. The Department currently administers more than $15 billion in IDEA funds for special education programs nationwide; OSERS provided essential guidance to ensure effective and equitable use of those funds.
The deep slashing of OSERS’ staff is part of a broad effort by this administration to dismantle the Department of Education (“ED”) and unlawfully flout Congress’ authority; in this case, by abandoning enforcement required under IDEA, a law enacted 50 years ago next month. The IDEA guarantees all children with disabilities access to a free and appropriate education and importantly, this landmark legislation remains the law of the land, requiring continued compliance by states, school districts, and charter schools.
Schools remain legally mandated to follow both federal and state special education laws. This includes identifying and serving children with disabilities, protecting them from discrimination, and ensuring that they are educated in the least restrictive environment alongside their non-disabled peers. Importantly, Pennsylvania’s Department of Education must continue to ensure schools’ compliance with federal and state special education laws, which may now require increased oversight.
ELC-PA urges federal legislators to push back against this unlawful dismantling of OSERS and ED. Federal enforcement and oversight is needed to sustain key civil rights protections for children with disabilities. Under our Constitution, only Congress has the authority to create or eliminate federal agencies. These unlawful mass layoffs and dismantling of the Department undertaken by the executive branch will substantially diminish federal enforcement of disability laws and is a devasting setback for students with disabilities who thrive in supportive, inclusive classrooms. Without ED’s enforcement authority, state agencies that fail to meet their legal obligations could face fewer consequences and be less likely to undertake systemic reforms. However, parents will continue to bring administrative complaints and federal court actions against schools and the state to uphold the rights of their children.
We look to Congress and the courts to reject the administration’s efforts to undermine the rights of students with disabilities, restore robust federal oversight, and reaffirm the nation’s commitment to educational equity and to all students with disabilities. The time to push back is now.
*****************************************
The Education Law Center-PA (ELC-PA) is a nonprofit, legal advocacy organization with offices in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, dedicated to ensuring that all children in Pennsylvania have access to a quality public education. Through legal representation, impact litigation, community engagement, and policy advocacy, ELC advances the rights of underserved children, including children living in poverty, children of color, children in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, children with disabilities, English learners, LGBTQ+ students, and children experiencing homelessness. For more information, visit elc-pa.org.
Lindsay Wagner, Director of Communications
(Pronouns: she/her)
Education Law Center-PA | 1800 JFK Blvd., Suite 1900A, Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 701-4264 | (215) 772-3125 (fax) | lwagner@elc-pa.org
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Those who did not expect this administration to do precisely this sort of thing have been hiding their heads in the sand. Or perhaps they secretly want to be cruel to the least in our society. I note that most Trump supporters do not openly admit they want cruelty directed at any of the groups that bear the brunt of hate crime and hate legislation, but they never voice sympathy publicly for the victims of crimes against them.
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The cruelty and ignorance of this administration know no bounds. One of the reasons the federal government is involved in trying to ensure adequate services for under served groups is because these groups require a somewhat modified type of instruction, and many states already deliberately choose to ignore these under served groups. Sending block grants to states that are led by blockheads will only exacerbate the already existing inequity. Right wing extremists prefer the Darwinian school of education instead of creating opportunity and access to those that require additional attention in order to function and perhaps thrive. This is bad education policy that will ultimately cost society more in the long run. Educators and medical professionals understand that early intervention is often the best approach addressing various conditions for students with special needs.
It also is heart-wrenching that this administration is cutting services for English learners, the vast majority of whom have the potential to productive, tax-paying members of society, if they can receive the kind of foundational education need and deserve. Without programming that will allow them to accelerate, many of the them will be left behind, and some of them may needlessly end up in the criminal justice system to survive, even though they have the potential to be a benefit to society. This is just more “penny wise, pound foolish” policy.
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You make interesting points. I would add that historically, our experience with the last large migration, the Eastern and Southern European migration, our refusal to help educate the migrants led to some very radical political influences. Left to themselves, those immigrants often turned to Europeans who spoke their language for their emotional support. This led to European ideas about socialism becoming very much an important part of the American political experience.
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Sorry, off-topic, but since you’re a fan of Masha Gessen, I thought you’d be interested in this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/opinion/palestinians-united-nations-francesca-albanese.html?unlocked_article_code=1.t08.K9DR.52Tna6FH1WFo&smid=nytcore-android-share
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This woman represents what it is that the Nobel Peace Prize should be about. A genuine humanitarian.
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Ignorant, heartless vandals
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Because I am a licensed and appointed special education teacher, I can say (with humility, I hope) that this is in my wheelhouse. I guarantee you that in superintendent’s offices all over this country (including right here in New York City), careerist bureaucrats are sighing in relief that they can now violate with near impunity students’ rights to an equal education.
It is inconvenient for this particular class of highly paid educational clerks that students have rights.
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As a former Asst Director of Education, this dismantling of the department must be especially infuriating to you, Diane.
As a retired teacher of special education who took the job seriously, this phase of the operation is a gut punch.
It was hard enough to provide the necessary services, what with the short staffing and foot dragging. This is bringing us back to the ‘50s, when the kids with special needs were relegated to the rooms in basement.
To which, Trump and McMahon would say, “Bingo…we win!”.
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I really have to wonder what the fed staff [OSERS] has been doing regarding oversight of state implementation of IDEA law over recent decades.
I mean, how much can one do, when the Congressional appropriation to defray states’ expense of implementing IDEA law is so paltry? The 1975 law authorized Congress to appropriate up to 40% of states’ cost to implement. We have long heard that Congress has never appropriated more than 14% of that extra cost. How much is the extra cost, and what % of it is Congress appropriating in recent years?
Let’s use the most conservative estimate: educating SpecEd students doubles the cost. Today’s national average public-school cost per-pupil is $17,277. Sources agree that that SpecEd pupils represent about 14% of total pubsch enrollment. We’ll use current estimate of total public school enrollment: 49.5 million. 14% = 6.93 million SpecEd students. @ double the current nat’l ave cost per-pupil of $17,277 = $34,554 per SpecEd student x 6.93 million = $239.46 billion ed cost. Divide by two [as their cost is double; they would receive half if not SpecEd] = $119.7 billion extra cost. How much did Congress appropriate for implementing IDEA law in 2024? $15.4 billion. That’s 12.8% of the total extra cost to states.
It’s not nothing. But it’s simply some assistance to defray the extra cost. For decades, public schools have been reqd to come up with 14% extra funding for their pubschsystem in order to implement fed IDEA law– but fed govt contributes only 13% or 14% of the 14% extra cost [i.e., feds come up with about 0.135% of the extra cost, leaving states to come up with the other 12.67%]. Comes pretty close to being an unfunded mandate.
Needless to say, the result is that states underfund SpecEd every which way they can without actually flouting the law. The usual methods we see today: districts (a)fight classification, (b)mainstream as many kids as they can possibly get away with, and (c)fight like hell against assigning your kid to a tiny, self-contained class. This results in the typical public complaint of families about their kids’ public education: every class contains SpecEd kids who (a)drag progress of class down, and (b)provide constant disruption [thro co-teaching hubbub &/ or presence of 1 or more emotionall-disordered SpecEd Kids].
I don’t know how prevalent that picture is, but I suspect it represents a majority of public-school classrooms. Only the privileged live in a wealthy schdistrict like mine, where there is sufficient budget to provide SpecEd kids with ample resource-room/ tutoring time (limiting their presence in all but a couple of mainstreamed classes), as well as providing tiny self-contained classes in certain subjects, as needed by classified kids with more severe learning challenges.
Getting back to the original Q: how much can fed DofEd do in oversight? Little. At best they can keep track of how local districts are managing. But they have no magic wand [like extra fed govt funding] to improve problematic situations they encounter.
That said, obviously fed DofEd needs sufficient staff to at least chronicle the implementation of IDEA law, and gather data to recommend improvements/ more generous appropriations.
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