As of 2025, only 19 states met the implementation requirements for major special education laws.
U.S. Rep. Frankel says dismantling the Department of Education would impact local schools
Congresswoman Lois Frankel addressed President Trump’s move to shut down the U.S. Department of Education at a news conference in West Palm Beach.
Angela Powell was left with few options before deciding to withdraw her autistic son from a traditional public school.
A Tennessee mother said her son is not receiving the services he should be receiving, even in the state’s wealthiest districts. Now she is teaching him at home.
“A lot of families can’t do what we did,” she said. “And many Tennessee families also cannot afford to send their children to private schools.”
The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, also known as IDEA, is intended to ensure that children with disabilities receive instruction in the least restrictive environment possible, often alongside children without disabilities. However, in practice, staffing and funding issues can prevent this from happening.
IDEA enforcement is often a necessary step for some families to ensure their children receive appropriate services from their local school district. But parents of children with disabilities are worried after President Donald Trump’s administration laid off a large portion of the Department of Education’s department that administers and enforces the law. The judge suspended the layoffs.
The Department of Education remains silent about why it fired 121 people from the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, according to court filings. The office allocates funds and enforces IDEA, the law that promotes accommodations for 7.5 million children with disabilities. The office had 179 employees as of September 2024, the latest figures available, which do not include layoffs or acquisitions made earlier this year.
Additionally, the Department of Education laid off 137 employees in offices that enforce civil rights laws, including handling disability discrimination complaints. 132 people will work in offices dedicated to primary and secondary schools, including supporting equal access for students. 64 people work at major higher education institutions. There are 7 people in the communication department. And there were four people in the secretary’s room.
“Education funding, including special education funding, will not be affected by the (cuts), and the clean (funding bill) supported by the Trump Administration will provide states and schools with the funding they need to support all students,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement Oct. 15.
Dennis Marshall, CEO of the Parent Lawyers and Advocates Council, said it was “disingenuous” to say the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services was still operating with only a few staff members.
“There is no way a crew of skeletons like this can meet their obligations under the law,” she said. “We don’t even get answers from them.”
And the current state of education for students with disabilities is already unstable. As of June, only 19 states were in full compliance with the requirements under IDEA to serve children ages 3 to 21, according to the Department of Education. The majority of states have had shortages for more than two years.
Funding isn’t always an issue in Tennessee.
That includes Tennessee, where Powell and her family live in Brentwood in Williamson County, just south of Nashville. For the second year in a row, the Department of Education said states “need assistance” to implement IDEA requirements. Even the state’s most well-funded school districts are running out of money, parents say.
Powell said her son, now 13, received numerous calls from the school saying he needed to be picked up from school because he had behavioral issues. Eventually, they required him to stay home and have teacher visits for a few hours a week.
“It’s widely used with children whose behavior is escalating,” Powell said. “This is just one way to address the school problem: keep your kids at home and still receive funding to send your kids to public school.”
Jolene Sharp, a mother of two whose daughter is in seventh grade and special education in Brentwood, has seen the challenges firsthand.
“With no official communication, it is very difficult to know exactly what is going on, and the concern with that is that it is difficult to know what the department’s plans are to meet its obligations,” she said.
Sharp said she is happy with the team she and her daughter work with, but the school is having trouble filling all positions. At the beginning of sixth grade, there was a vacancy in the special needs classroom, so the coordinator filled that role in addition to other duties, she said.
“We spent at least the first half of sixth grade just trying to get through the mess she caused, to the point where she was so overwhelmed and so frustrated that she almost ran out of the building,” Sharp said.
Williamson County Schools did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment by deadline. USA TODAY also reached out to the Tennessee Department of Education.
Families recognize disparities between states and districts.
Courtney Hansen of La Porte, Colorado, is a mother of three who sends her 13-year-old son, who has Down syndrome, to public schools in five states. I moved sometimes because the military transferred my husband, but also to find the best schools.
Of the 19 states that met expectations under IDEA this year, Hansen said he had good experiences with two, Nebraska and Ohio. Hansen was concerned about children being segregated in certain school districts in Washington state, so she found a school district that integrated children with disabilities.
In Idaho, she was so dissatisfied with her son’s school that she dropped him out after a week. On her way home, she filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights and went to journalists to voice her concerns about the school. The district closed the school at the end of the 2024 school year, citing issues related to student population, age and budget.
USA TODAY left a message seeking comment with the superintendent of the Moscow School District in Idaho.
Hansen’s family is now choosing to live in northern Colorado rather than in southern Wyoming, closer to her husband’s work. The Department of Education has ranked Colorado, along with Tennessee, as “needing assistance” for more than two years.
“Actually, we’ve had a pretty good experience. And when I say pretty good experience here, I mean we’re still putting out very small fires every day,” she said.
Jake Fishbein, a father of three who runs an app that helps parents plan for children with disabilities, lives in Washington, D.C.
The Department of Education said in June that the district “needs intervention” to meet IDEA requirements, the minimum rating given to states and territories in 2025. And in March, the department announced it was investigating D.C. public schools after a separate study found there were more special education complaints per 10,000 students than in any other state or territory.
Fishbein’s 14-year-old daughter is in an individualized education program in Maryland, one of 19 states that met the requirements this year. His children, ages 3 and 5, attend D.C. public schools.
Fishbein, who taught in urban schools for 15 years, said it’s the federal government’s job to bridge the gap between schools that meet standards and those that don’t.
But he said if the federal government reduced its role in disability services, the quality of education and parents’ ability to advocate would depend entirely on where children live.
“Whether I happen to live in Maryland or I happen to live in Tennessee, without federal oversight to ensure what happens to my family, my ability to advocate as a parent is completely dependent on those laws,” he said.
“Please tell him about autism and ADHD.”
Alexis Rose of Knoxville, Tenn., is no stranger to that argument.
She said she wants to go back to work, but spends much of her time advocating to ensure her third graders receive what they deserve with individualized education plans that accommodate ADHD, dyslexia and autism.
She said that he should be given extra time on the test and presented the questions in segments rather than as a whole page so that he is not visually overwhelmed.
But on Oct. 13, she said the math teacher didn’t respect that, so the school called her and informed her that his behavioral problems were due to him being overwhelmed and upset.
USA TODAY has reached out to Knox County Schools for comment.
“I don’t think they’re going to give him extra time unless I push harder,” Rose said. “They email me as if they expect me to sit their child down and spend a day talking about autism and ADHD, which is clearly not the case.”
Contributor: Zachary Schermele
