What is Happening at the Department of Education?
On March 20, President Trump issued an Executive Order entitled “Improving Education by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities”. This executive order is a key step in dissolving the Department of Education.
Before this, the President and the Education Secretary fired roughly half of the staff. The biggest cuts in staff are in offices handling financial aid for students. As well as offices that enforce civil rights. The Department of Education is already the smallest department by number of employees. This executive order doesn’t end disability civil rights laws. But it will make them much harder to enforce.
What is an Executive Order?
Executive orders are written orders from the President that says how something should be done. An executive order can not overrule an existing law. It is very common for Presidents to write executive orders. Or even undo executive orders by other Presidents. The President cannot dismantle the entire Department of Education without approval from Congress.
What Does the Department of Education Do?
The Department of Education has four key functions:
- Make policies for financial aid for education. And policies on how to give out and track that money.
- Collect data on America’s schools and disseminate research.
- Focus national attention on key issues in education. And make recommendations for education reform.
- Prohibit discrimination and ensure equal access to education.
The Department of Education (DOE) helps enforce the promises of laws related to disability education. Through such laws, disabled students have access to things like IEPs, accessible materials, and more.
The DOE also enforces laws such as Title IX. These laws disallow sex- and gender-based discrimination. And they protect the rights of students who are victims of sexual assault on campus.
The Department provides federal financial aid for students pursuing education after high school. This can be at a college or university or career and technical education to prepare them for a skilled career.
How Does Dismantling the Department of Education Impact People with Disabilities?
AAPD is gravely concerned about this executive order. There have been large cuts to staff. There has also been a lot of reassigning tasks to other agencies that do not have the expertise to do them.
Oversight and Enforcement:
The Department of Education has a key job in managing programs created by IDEA. This law helps about 7.5 million students with disabilities, about 15 percent of all students. The administration can’t end IDEA without Congress. But it can move the management to a different agency.
This change would drastically impact students with disabilities. There is no other agency that has the knowledge to oversee special education. Or to oversee education at all. Students with disabilities rely on these laws to succeed at school.
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which enforces IDEA and Section 504, has already lost nearly 50% of its staff. Shutting down or even reducing OCR’s staff will hurt disabled students. It will hurt them more than other students. This is due to limiting their access to complaint investigations and enforcement litigation. OCR is one of the main paths that disabled students use to get the education they deserve. It is already backlogged with disability discrimination cases.
Funding
Disrupting the DOE will badly affect federal financial aid. And it’ll affect people who have borrowed money from the government.
Schools rely on federal funds daily to support disabled students. These funds also pay special education teachers and therapists. Additionally, they buy the materials and equipment that students need. This executive order doesn’t reduce funding in itself. But other actions have been taken to do so.
It would be bad to dismantle the Department of Education. It would go against the wishes of Congress when it was created. Doing so would harm every American. Doing so would hurt disabled Americans more. Every American should contact their members of Congress and tell them this is a bad idea.
What Can You Do?
- Watch AAPD’s webinar: AAPD recently held a webinar highlighting the Department of Education’s importance and critical role in enforcing the rights of students with disabilities. We also discussed what an Executive Order to dismantle the Department would look like and the potential harms of such an order. You can watch a recording of the webinar here.
- Contact your members of Congress. Tell them that closing the Department of Education is bad for the American people. Send a letter to your Representatives and Senators in just a few clicks using AAPD’s tool at this link.
- Get civically engaged. Go to your town halls, council meetings, school boards, etc., and share information and tell them to take action.
- Share stories: Tell your story/the story of those impacted on social media and all online platforms
- Unite and educate the community. Bring together students with disabilities, parents, teachers, and decision-makers. Share the information you learn and motivate others to reject this executive order and defend our civil rights.