Research and Advocacy for Rightful Education

With the new academic year now underway, we look back on an eventful summer marked by new, substantial, and worrying federal announcements. On Tuesday, June 16, the administration issued new announcements regarding its continuous effort to dismantle the federal Department of Education and shift oversight back to individual states. Although states have long played a central role in administering education, transferring federal oversight responsibilities is especially concerning in special education because the rights at issue are established through federal civil rights and disability laws. Federal oversight provides a national floor of protection by promoting consistent standards, monitoring state compliance, collecting comparable data, and holding states accountable for providing students with disabilities a free, appropriate public education. Weakening that oversight could make the extent to which students’ rights are protected increasingly dependent on where they live.