The Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA) has grave concerns about the efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and transfer core functions of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to the Department of Justice.
Recent findings demonstrate that strong, coordinated federal education oversight is not optional—it is urgently needed. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that approximately seven million children ages 6 through 21 received special education services during the 2023–24 school year. Students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) continue to comprise the largest groups of students served under IDEA. Although the number of students with disabilities educated in general education classrooms for much of the school day increased nationally between 2012–13 and 2023–24, progress varied widely among states and districts. GAO also found that placement decisions were influenced by resource availability, family participation, school facilities, and school culture. All students with SLDs must have access to general education with the services and supports they require. This access must not be contingent on factors other than the needs of the individual students.
The disparities uncovered in the GAO report are especially concerning in light of the Department of Education’s most recent IDEA determinations. More than half of states and territories failed to meet federal targets for implementing special education services for children ages 3 through 21. Only 20 states and the Republic of the Marshall Islands were rated as meeting IDEA Part B requirements, while 33 states and territories were identified as needing assistance and several were designated as needing intervention. These determinations measure both legal compliance and progress on important outcomes, including graduation, transition planning, family involvement, and participation in inclusive classrooms.
These findings do not support weakening the federal education infrastructure. They demonstrate the need to strengthen it.
IDEA is an education law intended to ensure that students with disabilities receive a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. Responsibility for administering and enforcing it should remain within an agency whose central mission is education and whose personnel possess expertise in teaching, learning, assessment, school systems, inclusion, and educational accountability. Transferring core OSERS functions to HHS risks separating special education from general education and reframing students’ needs primarily through a health or medical-services lens. Students with learning disabilities are first and foremost students. Their success depends on specialized instruction being coordinated with the general education curriculum, school improvement, educator preparation, assessment, and postsecondary transition.
The current IDEA accountability process also illustrates why specialized federal capacity matters. States receiving repeated “needs assistance” determinations may be required to obtain technical assistance, redirect funds, or face designation as high-risk grantees. Yet the interagency arrangement announced in June 2026 anticipates HHS taking a leading operational role in annual state performance determinations and other OSERS monitoring and compliance activities. The most current reporting shows that 33 states were rated as “needs assistance” with 23 states falling into this category for the second year in a row.
Moving oversight and compliance responsibility to HHS at a time when so many states are failing to meet compliance and improvement targets creates an unacceptable risk of disruption, diluted accountability, and loss of institutional expertise.
The transfer of civil rights enforcement functions from OCR to the Department of Justice is also troubling. OCR provides an accessible administrative process through which students and families may seek relief from disability discrimination in schools and colleges. Its work is grounded in an understanding of educational institutions and the civil rights laws governing recipients of federal education funding. The DOJ is a law-enforcement and litigation agency; it does not serve the same educational oversight, technical-assistance, complaint-resolution, and systemic-monitoring roles as a fully staffed OCR embedded within the Department of Education. Separating civil rights enforcement from education policy may make it more difficult to identify patterns of exclusion, denial of accommodations, discriminatory discipline, and unequal access to instruction.
Students with disabilities need more, not less, federal protection. Wide differences among states, persistent failures to meet IDEA targets, increasing special education enrollment, shortages of qualified personnel, and continuing barriers to inclusive education all require a strong federal oversight to ensure collection of data, monitoring compliance, providing technical assistance, coordinating special and general education policy, and enforcing civil rights.
LDA calls on Congress to reinforce, not fragment, the institutions charged with ensuring educational access, equity, inclusion, and meaningful outcomes for every student with a disability.
Contact your representative and demand that they act to ensure students’ rights and educational access of students with learning and other disabilities are protected.
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