Special Education Moved to HHS
This morning, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced an Inter-Agency Agreement to transfer the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office for Civil Rights to the Department of Justice. This announcement disrupts the special education system that we have all unified to build and support over the last 50 years.
CEC is consistently and vocally opposed to efforts to fracture the federal role in education by dismantling ED and, more specifically, by moving special education to the Health Department. One of ED’s fundamental functions is to support the development, education, and workforce development of people with disabilities, priorities that are reflected in CEC’s members. These essential functions are now at risk as ED continues to fracture its role in supporting special education.
Shifting IDEA from the Department of Education to the Health Department represents more than a bureaucratic change; it signals a move toward a medical model that views students as patients rather than as learners with strengths, potential, and belonging. For five decades, we have worked to ensure that students with disabilities are recognized as general education students first. Keeping special education alongside all other education programs under ED protects that progress, strengthens inclusion, and upholds a unified K–12 system where every child is part of the school community.
CEC remains steadfast in our belief that the federal government plays a vital role in safeguarding the rights and education of children with disabilities. We all must continue to insist on a strong federal role in special education that ensures consistent oversight, accountability, high-quality personnel preparation, support for families, and, most importantly, policies that place children with disabilities, not politics, at the heart of every decision.
Please take action here to call on Congress to assert its oversight power to protect children with disabilities.
Thank you for your commitment to the education of children with disabilities. We will continue to keep you abreast of changes, and together, we will continue our fight.
Benjamin Tillotson, President
Chad Rummel, Chief Executive Officer