After 50 years, is the future of special education in jeopardy?

0:0050 years ago, special education in America was born. The time has come for a coordinated national undertaking to address the concerns of this nation's 35 million handicapped citizens to respond to their abilities as well as their disabilities. That was President Gerald Ford speaking at an event in November of 1975. One week later, he signed the landmark law known today as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. It guaranteed all children with disabilities the right to a, quote, free, appropriate public education. Margaret Spellings, the former education secretary for President George W.

0:42Bush, says political support for IDEA has not wavered. We have long had, for the last 50 years, until this year, you know, huge bipartisan support and fealty to the law. In fact, when I showed up... You could hear right there. Spelling said, until this year. That's because amid the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the Department of Education, there's a growing fear that protections for students with disabilities are in jeopardy. Many of the federal workers charged with overseeing IDEA or protecting students from disability discrimination have lost their jobs or are at risk of losing their jobs.

1:22We are concerned special education will cease to exist. Jacqueline Rodriguez is the CEO of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. When you take protections away from kids with disabilities that are legally entitled to those protections, every kid in the country is at risk. If they come for you, they're going to come for everybody. Consider this. On the 50th anniversary of IDEA, there is a lot to celebrate. But is the U.S. about to face a special education crisis?

1:59From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang.

2:10It's Consider This from NPR. Fifty years ago, just after Thanksgiving 1975, President Gerald Ford signed a landmark law that created special education as we know it. Well, for the next few minutes, we're going to mark its 50th anniversary by taking stock of where things stand today, as the Trump administration has tried to make significant cuts to federal staff who support and protect students with disabilities. NPR education correspondent Corey Turner joins us now. Hi, Corey. Hey, Elsa. So can we just first talk about what things were even like for students with disabilities before this landmark law even came down?

2:48In 1970, federal data shows that public schools educated just one in five children with a disability, Elsa. I spoke with Ed Martin. He's now 94, and he helped write that landmark law that changed that. Mostly, it was just that they were invisible. They had been kept at home. Our goal was to end that. So before the law passed, Martin helped organize public hearings for parents so they could share their stories directly with lawmakers. There was one mother who told us a story about the school bus stopping at the foot of her driveway and her daughter standing in the window crying, saying, why can't I go with the other kids?

3:33Ultimately, Elsa, Congress listened. They passed what we now know as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. And the very next school year, it helped some 3.7 million students. Wow. OK, and what does it mean that this law helped all of those millions of students? Like what changed for them precisely? Yeah, the law guarantees children with disabilities the right to a free, appropriate public education. That means schools have to provide accommodations. They're also required to keep kids in traditional classrooms as much as possible. To help pay for it, Congress sends states billions of dollars every year.

4:12And then finally, the Education Department provides oversight through its Office of Special Education Programs, which fields calls from families and makes sure states follow the law. And what if parents worry that a school is falling short or even worse, actually discriminating against their child? They can file a disability discrimination complaint with the Office for Civil Rights, or OCR. Now, its authority does not come from IDEA, but there tends to be a lot of overlap. And if OCR sees something concerning about how a child has been treated at school, its attorneys can open an investigation.

4:50And there's no need for a family to hire an expensive lawyer or advocate. Well, as we said, we know that the Trump administration has made deep cuts across the education department. How might those cuts affect the federal role in special education, you think? Yeah, in several ways. The Office for Civil Rights that I just mentioned, it lost about half its staff in spring layoffs. And then during the shutdown in October, the administration fired just about everyone else who was left. They also fired nearly everyone at the Office for Special Education. Now, those shutdown cuts have since been reversed, but there is no guarantee the administration won't try to make the cuts again after January 30th.

5:32President Trump has also said he wants to move special education to a different agency. In defending these cuts, Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said she does not want to cut special education funding. Instead, she wants to cut, quote, the centralized bureaucracy micromanaging, what should be a state-led responsibility, she says. But I also spoke with Margaret Spellings, who is herself a former education secretary under Republican President George W. Bush. And she says the federal government provides a really important backstop for families. If I'm a parent of one of those students with dyslexia or a special ed diagnosis, what can I do if I hit a roadblock with state or local policymakers?

6:19Because I, this parent, am looking at the law that says, you know, here are my rights on behalf of my kid. Well, Corey, you said the Office for Civil Rights now has about half the staff it had in January, right? Yeah. What does that mean for parents filing disability discrimination complaints then? To answer that question, Elsa, I want to introduce you very quickly to one family I met. They live in a Kansas City suburb, Maggie Heilman and her daughter, Brooklyn, who's in eighth grade. Brooklyn has Down syndrome, which also affects her speech. She loves playing basketball, she told me, also dancing.

6:53She and her mom talked about how Brooklyn's favorite hot lunch at school is chicken nuggets with mashed potatoes. Yum. And I get more seconds. You go get that kids. Oh my, I knew you got second. Doesn't it? That mom likes my tears. You like to dip the mashed potatoes. Yeah. I do too. Now, in October 2023, Maggie Heilman told me she got a call from Brooklyn School that her daughter had become agitated and was secluded for 20 minutes in a small padded room. Now, schools sometimes turn to seclusion when a student poses a risk to themselves or others. It is allowed in many states, but it can also be traumatic.

7:39And Heilman says she told school staff that she opposed the use of seclusion with Brooklyn. After that, she says the school used a kind of informal seclusion. And we just saw our daughter's health physically, mentally, emotionally deteriorate. And then finally, Brooklyn switched schools and things immediately turned around for her. But Heilman says she worried for the students who came after her. So she filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights, OCR, arguing that Brooklyn had been denied her legal right to a free, appropriate public education. And what happened with that complaint? Well, an attorney at OCR opened an investigation.

8:20We know that just over a year ago. But since then, Heilman has had two different OCR attorneys who both appear to have gotten caught up in the administration's mass firings. Heilman hasn't heard anything new about her case in months. In a statement, the department told NPR, quote, we are rebuilding and refocusing OCR to enable the office to protect students and enforce the law. But Elsa, public data suggests OCR is shifting away from these kind of labor-intensive disability-related investigations. Since Trump took office, it has reached resolution agreements in 73 disability cases. But compare that to the first year of Trump's first term in 2017.

9:03Instead of 73, OCR reached agreements in more than a thousand such cases. Wow, that's a huge difference. Well, considering how 50 years ago things were really hard for kids with disabilities, how does that compare with where things are now? I mean, look, IDEA now reaches more than 8 million children, giving them educational opportunities that kids with disabilities simply did not have before this law existed. And that is a huge success. I think right now we're just in a moment of change or at least uncertainty. You know, the message from the Trump administration is the money that comes with IDEA should keep flowing to states, but that states can handle the rest without much federal oversight.

9:46And frankly, the last time families really had to rely solely on their states was before 1975 when this law was passed. That is NPR education correspondent Corey Turner. Thank you so much, Corey. You're welcome, Elsa. This episode was produced by Catherine Fink. It was edited by Nicole Cohen and Jeanette Woods. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

10:13It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.