Special education and disability groups have been joined by some state attorneys general in pushing back against a U.S. Department of Education (USDE) plan to drop certain data collections tracking racial disparities. In a March 23 Federal Register notice, the USDE sought public comment on proposed changes to the federally required State Performance Plans and Annual Performance Reports for special education. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), each state must develop these documents to evaluate their efforts to implement IDEA requirements and detail how it will make improvements.

Specifically, the USDE has suggested eliminating data collections used in these reports for:
-Significant discrepancies in suspension and expulsion rates for students with disabilities.
-Significant discrepancies in suspension and expulsion for students with disabilities by race and ethnicity, and policies contributing to those discrepancies.
-Disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in specific disability categories that result from inappropriate identification.

Opponents say the data collections on racial disparities are essential to states’ compliance with IDEA.  For example, the Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE), in a May 22 public comment submission, said it “feels strongly that these indicators are critical to shining a light on inequities regarding discipline and disproportionate representation in special education.” CASE also took issue with the USDE’s rationale that there is already a “wealth of discipline data related to students with disabilities” from Office for Civil Rights (OCR) reporting. However, CASE called this approach “deeply flawed” given that OCR has undergone significant staff reductions under the Trump administration.

The USDE’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget recommends reducing OCR staffing to 271 and shrinking the office’s budget to $91 million in FY 27. OCR had 530 staffers and a $140 million budget in FY25.

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