This article was created for Propublica’s local reporting network in collaboration with Idaho Statesman. Sign up for Dispatch to get stories in your inbox every week.
Many times, the U.S. Department of Education has been a last resort for parents who say Idaho has failed to educate their children. In 2023, the federal agency ordered Idaho to suspend blocks of students with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia in special education. That same year, its own review of the state’s own districts and charters flagged it obscuring the fact that only 20% were in full compliance with federal disability laws. Last year it said long delays in services for infants and toddlers with disabilities that could include language and physical therapy must be ended.
Now President Donald Trump has pledged to dismantle the division.
Idaho’s public leadership superintendent Debbie Crichfield celebrated the proposal. She argued that the move would not change the requirement that the state provide special education to students who need it. That requires the act of Congress.
However, parents and advocates of students with disabilities say they are not worried that schools do not effectively guarantee that they will follow special education laws.
“Historically, when left to their devices, states don’t necessarily do the right thing for children with disabilities and their families,” said Larry Wexler, former department director of the federal agency for special education programs.
A former federal education department employee who worked on special education surveillance said surveillance measures would likely be hampered by layoffs. This included lawyers who worked with special education firms to provide state monitoring reports.
Greg Koll, the firm’s former division director, said “it’s really difficult for staff to confirm and issue these reports to the state” without a group of lawyers that focused on enforcement of special education laws. He also added that lawyers may be reluctant to take on more complicated matters without running them.
“It may be OK now that it was inconsistent with the legal requirements six months ago, and it just depends on how it is interpreted,” Wexler said.
Millions of people denied service before federal law
For parents who have fought for services for years, federal oversight has been important.
After Ashley Britten, a lawyer and mother for dyslexic children, moved to Idaho in 2021, she realized an important issue. Idaho’s standards for qualified students with certain learning disabilities such as dyslexia and dysgraphia were very narrow, and qualified students were not allowed to receive service.
Historically, states don’t necessarily do the right thing to children with disabilities or their families when left to their devices.
– Larry Wexler, former department director of the Federal Bureau of Special Education Programs
Along with Robin Zicmund, founder of Dyslexia Idaho, who has a son of dyslexia and dysgraphia, Britten has been seeking to serve dozens of children who acknowledge their disabilities and need help for years.
“We are at the table over and over again at a qualified table where the school teams do not qualify students with dyslexia,” Zikmund previously told Idaho politicians and Propovika. “And it was like, ‘What’s going on?’ ”
Britten called state officials and told them they were breaking the law. State officials disagreed. No one took action, she said. In 2022, she wrote to the office of the Special Education Program. In a letter she sent to the Federal Bureau, she said the Idaho Department of Education “refusing to entertain the conversation” under former supervisor Shelley Yborough. Ybarra could not be reached for comment.
Before Congress passed what is now known as the Disabled Education Act in 1975, the U.S. Department of Education was established as an institution under the Cabinet about five years later.
Approximately 1.8 million students with disabilities at the time were estimated to be out of service by public schools. According to federal government’s own history, some states had laws that prohibit students with certain disabilities from attending public schools.
The law granted students with disabilities access to “free and appropriate public education” – giving the state money to meet their individual needs and fulfill their commitments. Currently, the law also ensures that infants and young children with disabilities have access to early interventions such as physical therapy and speech therapy.
Since then, the U.S. Department of Education has been responsible for ensuring that states adhere to the law, providing reviews of state performance, distributing money, and providing technical assistance to help states improve learning outcomes for special education students.
The department conducts annual reviews of each state, with more intensive state reviews that should be completed almost every five years. Annual reviews will identify issues and examine discipline numbers, graduation rates, and test scores that will help states to correct them. The five-year review includes state visits and views of state policies, student data and annual reports. If the state needs to take corrective action, the Federal Office of Special Education monitors the changes as they are making.
Idaho is one of around 12 states currently being monitored, according to the latest update on the federal agency website.
We are at the table many times, at a qualified table where the school team does not qualify students with dyslexia. And it was like, “What’s going on?”
– Robin Zikmund, founder of Deslexia Idaho
Parent complaints can also trigger reviews, as in Britain, Idaho. After Brittain claimed that the state was unfairly protecting children with special education dyslexia and other disabilities, she had waited more than a year before getting answers from the office of special education programs. She was right. According to the latest data reported to the U.S. Department of Education from 2022 to 2023, Idaho has acknowledged that the proportion of students with certain learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, extends to special education compared to other states.
By then, Idaho had a new state chief of public leadership for Critchfield, where Britain had been campaigning. The Special Education Programs Department told Crichfield in 2023 that states need states to show whether they comply with federal laws or update them.
In response, the Idaho Department of Education updated its special education manual. This was approved by the Congress. They also directed the district to review all students found to be unqualified for special education since 2023 and determined whether they needed to be reevaluated.
Idaho parents celebrated the victory. This will facilitate qualification in states where some children have one of the lowest percentages of specially educated students. However, they acknowledged that the correction was not perfect and excluded students who may have been found to be unqualified for special education before the federal agency identified the issue. The state is not tracking the number of students qualified due to the changes.
Nicole Fuller, policy manager at the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said cases like these that some students have overlooked would “really highlight the need for federal oversight and of course hold the state responsible for accurately identifying the disability.”
Federal government oversight is not perfect. By the time Idaho dealt with Britain’s complaints, the state had been out of compliance since at least 2015. Droping out of compliance could risk losing federal funds, but that penalty appears to have been in use in decades.
The federal government has never fulfilled its promise to fund 40% of state special education expenses, but Idaho relied on about 18% of its special education budget between the 2022-2023 school year, state officials said. The rest is made up of state or local school districts through a referendum. A recent report by the independent Idaho State Office estimates that special education is underfunded in 2023 by more than $80 million.
However, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon, appointed by Trump in March, said closing the department would not mean “scrapping funds from those who rely on them,” and would eliminate “bureaucracy” and the regulations associated with them.
Idaho supervisor Crichfield said in Idaho-based The Ranch Podcast that teachers involved in special education “we spend a lot of time filling in paperwork rather than focusing on how to help children succeed. The change is to “get rid of the bureaucracy.”
However, Crichfield acknowledged that cuts at the federal level could pose challenges if states must take on more surveillance roles.
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“As long as I’m the state champion who does it, the reality is that it will have an impact on Idaho and our division,” she said in a statement to politicians and Propoblica. The nation is considering what can be done to prepare, and “where the gap exists” is when more liability is reduced to the state.
Advocate Sicmund, who praised Crichfield as a parent-sensitive and “open door policy,” said his parents could be better after excelling leadership at the state level, but if they didn’t, they could face a “train accident.”
One test will release a report in June showing how the office of special education programs performed in its annual review. Layoffs and restructuring under Trump make supporters wonder if the federal government really explains the state.
