Department of Education moving special education and civil rights responsibilities
The Department of Education Tuesday announced a major step in the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the agency -- moving special education services and civil rights responsibilities to the departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Justice (DOJ), respectively.
Through four interagency agreements (IAA), HHS will absorb the Offices of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services Administration (OSERS) while the Justice Department will be responsible for the agency's civil rights oversight. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said the agreements align federal responsibilities with the agencies best positioned to support them.
However, the department's main roles in education are to serve students with disabilities and handle civil rights complaints. Education is a local-level function and the federal department only administers roughly 10% of public school funds nationwide.
Advocates worry transferring the offices will impact millions of students and families, including 7 million people who receive around $15 billion in grants through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the law creating free and appropriate education for children with disabilities.
However, senior Department of Education officials told reporters that OSERS will continue its statutory functions "without interruption" and in compliance with federal law.
"Students will not lose any rights, including their right to a free, appropriate public education," a senior department official said, adding, "No agreement can alter the rights that students with disabilities are afforded under federal law."
The moves have frustrated some parents and advocates who worry HHS employees lack the expertise to address the needs of kids with learning disabilities. HHS employees work under a medical model, which means they are charged with serving the nation's health and wellness, according to a Department of Education official who spoke with ABC News. The department official argued that students with disabilities should be supported by an education model agency.
National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues told ABC News the announcements create more chaos for families with special needs.
"We don't want OSERS to be sent to HHS," Rodrigues stressed. "Our kids need access to free and appropriate public education. They don't need to be medicalized, like, there is a reason why this has been done this way for the past 50 years."
"We do not need our kids to be medicalized, we need them to be educated," she added.
In a congressional hearing last spring, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. contended that special education programming should return to HHS.
"Some of these programs should have always been under HHS purview," Kennedy said. "It just makes more sense. They're health-related programs rather than particularly educated programs, and we have many parallel programs at HHS that can benefit from synergies from each other," he said.
President Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 on closing the agency -- choosing former WWE CEO McMahon to spearhead the mission -- and signing an executive order to return education responsibilities from the federal government to the states.
She used her broad authority to conduct more than ten IAAs that the department has said is a frequently used tool made with partner agencies. The department agreements sent the nearly $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department in March and previously made similar agreements with the departments of Interior, Labor and State.
Education Committee Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich., applauded the announcement for putting students first and cutting bureaucracy.
"The Trump administration is following through on its promise to fix the nation's broken system by right-sizing the Department of Education to improve student outcomes," Walberg said in a statement.
