Category: Federal Government Actions

Trump Plans to Move Special Ed. to HHS (March 24, 2025)

On March 21, 2025, President Trump announced that federal special education operations, currently spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Education (USDE), will move to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). He also said he would move federal student loan and school nutrition program oversight from the USDE to the Small Business Administration.

The USDE oversees the distribution of about $15.4 billion for supports to about 8.4 million infants, toddlers, school children, and young adults with disabilities. The USDE’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilatives Services (OSERS) and Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) also conducts monitoring, provides technical assistance to states and school districts, and holds states and school districts accountable for compliance to IDEA.

Despite saying that tremendous results from the move will be experienced, what is unclear is how HHS will handle the increased workload and whether staff will require training — or whether remaining staff that handled those areas will be transferred if still employed at USDE.
Chad Rummel, executive director of the Council for Exceptional Children, said in a statement that, “IDEA is an education law, not a healthcare law, and belongs at the Department of Education.”

National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues released a statement that said, “This is not a minor bureaucratic reorganization — it is a fundamental redefinition of how our country treats children with disabilities.” The National Parents Union is a 1.7 million membership organization with more than 1,800 affiliated parent organizations in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. “We must call this what it is: an effort to dismantle protections, disempower families, and turn education into a battleground for profit-driven insurance corporations,” Rodrigues said.

For more from K-12 Dive, click here.

How Medicaid Cuts will Harm Students (March 23, 2025)

A new report, How Medicaid Cuts Will Harm Students & Schools, presents the findings of a nationwide survey of over 1,400 school district leaders, including superintendents, school business officials and school health coordinators, on the impact Medicaid cuts would have on school health services, student resources and district funding. The executive summary and related graphics highlight key data points and respondents’ quotes.

The report was published by Healthy Schools Campaign (HSC) in partnership with The School Superintendents Association (AASA), Association of School Business Officials International (ASBO), National Alliance for Medicaid in Education (NAME) and Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE). 

A public dissemination toolkit is available to help share the report with your networks.

Cuts Essentially Eliminate Ed. Research at USDE (March 22, 2025)

Cuts by the Trump administration has all but eliminated the U.S. Department of Education’s (USDE)  statistical research arm, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which has conducted statistical research by collecting, analyzing, and reporting U.S. education data for over 150 years. The loss of almost all of the staff in the NCES, which traces its existence to an 1867 law establishing a federal statistical agency to conduct research, analyze everything from graduation rates and student outcomes to teacher and principal development, and provide the Nation’s Report Card.

For more from K-12 Dive, click here.

Leading Democrats Submit Written Request for USDE Layoff Details (March 22, 2025)

Leading Democrats on the congressional appropriations committees sent a 10-page letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon demanding information about the mass layoffs in the Department of Education (USDE). The March 11 layoffs cut the USDE’s workforce nearly in half and many want to know what the impact will be on the agency’s ability to perform a variety of required oversight functions.

Among major areas of concern identified in the letter are accountability under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, services for students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, federal student aid programs at colleges and universities, and students’ civil rights.

The letter requests details regarding the following:
-The number of staff terminated in each program office;
-Expected savings in salaries and benefits for fiscal 2025;
-How many remaining staff were assigned additional duties due to staff reductions since January 20, 2025;
-The average per-staff number of new duties assigned; and
-A complete list of office teams that were cut and the specific responsibilities transferred from those teams to other offices.

For more from K-12 Dive, click here.

Trump Signs Executive Order to Close USDE (March 20, 2025)

On Thursday, March 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities calling on U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.” At the signing ceremony, Trump stated that, “We’re going to be returning education, very simply, back to the states where it belongs. And this is a very popular thing to do, but much more importantly, it’s a common sense thing to do, and it’s going to work, absolutely.”

However, an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll taken in late February 2025 found that 63% of Americans surveyed said they would oppose getting rid of the U.S. Department of Education (USDE), compared with 37% who supported its closure.

Trump administration already laid off many USDE staff, reducing the a department that had 4,133 employees when Trump took office and has now 2,183 employees left. Nearly 600 workers resigned or retired and an additional 1,300 lost their jobs as part of a reduction in force.

Although the USDE was created by Congress and cannot legally be ended without congressional approval, it appears that the department may well be significantly crippled by the actions thus far taken against it.

To view the executive order, click here.

Source: NPR