How Education Department layoffs could impact students with disabilities

The Department of Education cut nearly half its civil rights investigators, which experts say could have a major impact on children with special needs.

Massive layoffs initiated this week at the Education Department could hamstring the federal government’s efforts to assist students with disabilities, former officials and education experts said, citing blows to the agency’s civil rights and research divisions. 

On Tuesday, the department began laying off around 1,300 employees, cutting nearly half the staff in its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and over 100 from the Institute of Education Sciences, according to information released by American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, the union for department staff members.  

The cuts in those two divisions mean there will be far fewer staff members to finish the 12,000 pending federal investigations into allegations of civil rights violations at schools — roughly half of which involve disability issues — and fewer employees to review and distribute government-funded research into effective ways to educate children with autism or severe intellectual disabilities. 

The layoffs are the first step toward dismantling the department, a goal espoused by President Donald Trump and his education secretary, Linda McMahon. Experts say they raise concerns about what the future will look like for civil rights enforcement as the Trump administration continues chipping away at federal oversight. 

“That’s hundreds of investigators who no longer work for OCR and whose expertise that OCR has benefited from over all these years that the nation is now losing,” said Catherine Lhamon, who led the Office for Civil Rights during the Obama and Biden administrations.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/education-department-layoffs-students-disabilities-rcna196114

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