The Trump administration wants to move a major program for students with disabilities out of the Department of Education as part of its ongoing plan to shutter the department.
The $15 billion Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ensures that children with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education. It has been law since 1975.
The administration is reportedly looking for a new federal agency that would take on management of IDEA.
David DeMatthews, a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin, says recreating the expertise of the staff that administers the IDEA program requires significant study and analysis, which the Trump administration has so far not indicated it will perform. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: What does IDEA do?
David DeMatthews: It’s a really complicated law, but at the core is that every child with a disability receives an individualized education to meet their unique needs and the challenges they may have as a result of their disability. And the school districts need to provide this free of charge and at a certain level of quality and standard that is aligned to evidence-based practices that improve outcomes for students with disabilities.
Does this mean in terms of the way that the education department works this program, does it mean that they police the program, that they make sure that local administrators are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, or do they basically provide money that runs the program?
So they have four core functions here. First is the funding piece. And so they oversee the roughly $15 billion annually that goes out to states to implement IDEA.
They provide both compliance and oversight checks. So they monitor implementation. They review state plans, and they investigate when there’s issues of noncompliance. And we’ve seen that in Texas.
They also provide technical assistance. So they help states. They help districts. And they help families navigate the law, implement the law with more fidelity.
And then lastly, they’re engaged in dispute resolution. So they ensure that states have a system where complaints from families can be heard, that there’s mediation and that there is also due process.
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You know, the education department is a relatively young department in the whole panoply of departments of the federal government. I don’t think the education department was set up until like 1978 or ’79. Is there any real issue in moving that function into another department like HHS?
Technically, it doesn’t matter where the office actually sits. And so, yeah, before there was a Department of Education, there was monitoring. But the office that has now existed in the Department of Education for 50 years – there’s a great deal of educational expertise in working with state education agencies. There can be fragmenting responsibilities.
And so special education isn’t just about special education. It’s also connected to other education laws like the Every Student Succeeds Act and Title I. So it doesn’t necessarily make sense to just break the Department of Education up and put it in a variety of different places, because a lot of the different education programs that exist that include special ed, but are not only special ed, are tied to what happens in states and what happens in public schools within those states.
So if you pull that apart, then you lose access to the knowledge and infrastructure and also to other program workers that are interested in seeing special ed perform well.
Given your expertise, knowing that the Trump administration does plan to dismantle the education department – we’ve already seen firings at the DOE – what would you advise? Is there an agency that would be best suited to take on this massive administrative task?
I think the main thing I would advise is for the Trump administration to pause, to study very closely the job functions that are core to the Department of Education’s work, and then to develop a comprehensive plan rather than just trying to kind of break this up into pieces and siphon it off into different departments to do thoughtful strategic planning – just like you would do in a business that was acquiring or breaking down a division.
I would make that recommendation, and unfortunately this just seems like a political move that didn’t have a lot of intentional planning and study, and that’s a really sad thing to me.
