CHADD Joins More Than 740 Organizations in Calling for Continued Federal Protections for Students with Disabilities
Broad Coalition of Disability, Civil Rights, and Education Organizations Denounces ED’s Latest Transfers of Core Functions
The undersigned disability, civil rights, and education organizations strongly oppose the administration’s efforts to transfer the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to the Department of Justice (DOJ) through Interagency Agreements (IAAs). These agreements undermine the core foundation of federal disability, education, and civil rights policy and implementation.
Students with disabilities deserve educational systems structured around their needs, rights, and opportunities—not administrative restructuring that risks disrupting critical services and protections. They deserve equitable access to education, robust protections under the law, and an intact Department of Education committed to their success and steadfast in defending their rights.
Far too many students experience unacceptable barriers to receiving services and supports—but these transfers do not offer meaningful solutions. Although ED states that it considered stakeholder input, the IAAs do not reflect the concerns widely expressed by parents, educators, disability organizations, and civil rights advocates. Congress specifically entrusted ED with administering the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), enforcing Section 504 protections in public schools and colleges, overseeing vocational rehabilitation programs, and safeguarding the civil rights of students with disabilities. Since the department’s establishment in 1979, Congress has repeatedly reauthorized and strengthened these laws within ED, creating an integrated framework for students with disabilities that connects educational opportunity, civil rights enforcement, transition services, workforce preparation, and employment outcomes.
Transferring OSERS to HHS moves critical education, transition, and employment programs into an agency primarily focused on health care, weakening coordination among schools, vocational rehabilitation programs, and postsecondary opportunities. Furthermore, separating OSERS from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), which funds and oversees K–12 education programs, segregates disability-related educational programs from the broader education system and weakens the coordination needed to ensure that students with disabilities are fully included in general education. Special education is not a separate enterprise. IDEA is built on the principle that students with disabilities should be educated alongside their peers and have access to the same academic standards, accountability systems, and opportunities for success. State education leaders and educators—including both general and special educators—also rely on ED’s expertise, guidance, monitoring, and technical assistance, all of which Congress funds and directs the department to provide.
Likewise, transferring OCR to DOJ separates education-focused civil rights enforcement from the agency responsible for education policy and oversight. The move could expose students and their families to longer wait times when discrimination occurs in schools and risks the loss of specialized expertise that students and families rely on to resolve complaints and drive necessary improvements in school policy and practice. It could also discourage some families from seeking assistance or filing complaints because they are concerned about engaging with a law enforcement agency rather than experts in education and disability law.
Congress intentionally built an education and vocational rehabilitation continuum that supports individuals with disabilities from early intervention through school, postsecondary education, and employment. Moving OSERS to HHS and OCR to DOJ dismantles this coordinated and cohesive approach and threatens decades of progress in advancing educational, employment, and civil rights outcomes for students with disabilities.
The undersigned organizations urge Congress to reject these transfers and preserve the Department of Education’s longstanding, congressionally mandated roles in leading, directing, overseeing, administering, and enforcing the laws and programs that support opportunity, inclusion, and success for all students with disabilities.