Tag: special

Teacher shortages hinder special education progress. What are the solutions?

This is part two of a two-part series on the 50th anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. For part one, click here.

Special education staff turnover is a constant challenge at Godwin Heights Public Schools in Michigan.

Sometimes a special education role will turn vacant just a month or six weeks after the district hired someone because they start and leave so quickly, says Derek Cooley, the district’s special education director.

“We used to have staff that would spend their whole careers in special education” at Godwin Heights, Cooley says. “We just don’t see that anymore.”

People often enter the special education field because they have family members with disabilities, or they come from a family of public educators, says Cooley. Throughout his own hiring history and over 20-year education career, he’s noticed this pattern, he says.

But what keeps special educators in schools “isn’t just passion,” Cooley says. “It’s also having strong mentoring and coaching, a manageable workload, and practical supports like tuition reimbursement that make the job sustainable and rewarding.”

Godwin Heights Public Schools is not alone in the struggle to recruit and retain special education staff. In fact, this field is typically cited as one of the top staffing problem areas among districts nationwide. During the 2024-25 school year, 45 states reported teacher shortages in special education, according to the Learning Policy Institute.

45

The number of states that reported teacher shortages in special education during the 2024-25 school year.

Source: Learning Policy Institute

These shortages can also lead to costly litigation between districts and families for missed special education services. To fill special educator vacancies, schools often rely on teachers not certified in special education or hire outside contractors to fill these roles.

These widespread shortages — which researchers and special education experts say were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic — continue to be a sticking point as the education community celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The historic legislation, signed into law on Nov. 29, 1975, guaranteed students with disabilities the right to a free and appropriate public education nationwide. Until then, there was no federal requirement that schools must educate students with disabilities.

But five decades later, special education experts and advocates say much work remains to ensure that all students with disabilities indeed have access to a high-quality education.

Since the 1990s, special education has been the top staffing shortage area in U.S. schools, said Bellwether Education Partners in a 2019 data analysis.

Meanwhile, the number of students with disabilities ages 3-21 served by IDEA has surged by nearly 20% since 2000-01, to 7.5 million students in the 2022-23 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Derek Cooley is special education director at Godwin Heights Public Schools in Wyoming, Mich.

Permission granted by Derek Cooley

While all students are falling behind academically since the pandemic, as measured by the Nation’s Report Card and other data collections, students with disabilities are performing even worse than their general education peers. A majority — 72% — of 4th graders with disabilities scored below basic in reading, and 53% scored below basic in math on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress. That’s compared to the 34% of 4th grade students without disabilities who scored below basic in reading, and the 19% who scored below basic in math.

Research and special education experts agree that special educator turnover and student outcomes are inextricably tied. A study released in May by the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, for instance, found that in Washington state, high turnover among special educators is “especially detrimental to students with disabilities” and their academic performance.

“I think we’re far from the vision” and commitments of IDEA, says Heather Peske, president of the nonprofit National Council on Teacher Quality. As the latest scores from the Nation’s Report Card reveal, “there is the need for access to effective teachers, and so states and districts really need to focus on the opportunities available to them to increase both the quantity and the quality of special ed teachers,” Peske says.

But hope remains alive — and is actively fueling efforts by researchers and state education leaders to implement innovative strategies to address the widespread, decades-long struggle to staff special education.

When we fail to fully staff our classrooms, we fail to deliver on the promise of a free and appropriate public education for students with disabilities.

Abby Cypher

Executive director of the Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education

In late September, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a report acknowledging that the special education teacher shortage is more than a staffing problem — it’s also a civil rights issue.

“I 100% agree with that,” says Abby Cypher, executive director of the Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education. “When we fail to fully staff our classrooms, we fail to deliver on the promise of a free and appropriate public education for students with disabilities.”

Viewing the special education shortage as a civil rights issue is what keeps pushing Cypher to improve special educator recruitment and retention in Michigan. And it also reminds her that this is a problem that needs urgent solutions.

In recent years, Cypher says, the Michigan association has implemented new strategies to tackle the shortages as recommended by a state Legislature task force known as OPTIMISE, or Opening the Pipeline of Talent into Michigan’s Special Education. While the work is only just beginning, early results are promising, she said.

Special educators commonly leave the profession for a myriad of reasons, including low pay, poor working conditions, large workloads and heavy paperwork, as well as lack of school leadership support and professional development, according to special education experts.

With IDEA’s 50th anniversary upon us, K-12 Dive spoke with special education leaders and researchers about promising innovations to tackle special education teacher shortages and best practices for implementing the ideas at state and local levels.

Special educator shortages persist as a top staffing issue

The percentage of surveyed public schools that anticipated a need to fill certain teaching positions by subject areas before the start of the next school year.

Targeted compensation

Eighteen states differentiate compensation for special education teachers by paying them more than general education teachers. But Hawaii is the only one that offers over $5,000 in additional annual pay — the amount that research suggests could make a meaningful impact, according to a September NCTQ report.

The Hawaii Department of Education found in an October study that its $10,000 differential pay for special education teachers boosted teacher retention. But lower amounts had no impact on recruitment or retention in that state, the department said. The state’s average annual salary for all teachers is $78,124.

Increasing compensation or creating student loan forgiveness opportunities for special educators could boost both recruitment and retention, says Laurie VanderPloeg, associate executive director for professional affairs at the Council for Exceptional Children. “People are going to stay if they feel that they are being compensated for their workload and the time and the effort that they’re putting in.”

One way districts could cover higher salaries for special educators would be to stop paying teachers more across the board for having a master’s degree, Peske says. “We found that 90% of large school districts across the U.S. pay teachers more for having a master’s degree, and nearly one-third of states require districts to pay for these master’s degrees despite the evidence that master’s degree premiums are bad policy for almost everyone.”

In NCTQ’s own research, the nonprofit has found that master’s degrees for teachers do not correlate with effectiveness in the classroom, Peske said.

If we don’t have a strong climate and culture within the building, if we don’t have the administrative support, if we don’t have other areas to incentivize staff … they’re not going to stay.

Laurie VanderPloeg

Associate executive director for professional affairs at the Council for Exceptional Children

Meanwhile in Michigan, several educator unions have been able to negotiate higher wages for paraprofessionals who complete training developed by MAASE, Cypher says.

But VanderPloeg emphasizes that higher compensation is just “one piece of the puzzle.”

“If we don’t have a strong climate and culture within the building, if we don’t have the administrative support, if we don’t have other areas to incentivize staff … they’re not going to stay,” says VanderPloeg, who served as director of the federal Office of Special Education Programs during the first Trump administration.

Tammy French, autism special education teacher at Bishop Elementary School in Rochester, Minn., goes over a new educational tool with autism paraprofessional Marion Fosdick after class on March 14, 2019.

Ken Klotzbach/The Rochester Post-Bulletin via AP

Training and professional development

In Michigan, Cypher says schools face a lot of turnover among paraprofessionals who often say in exit interviews that they left because they had neither the skills nor access to the training they needed to be successful. Paraprofessionals don’t need teaching licenses, and they typically are paid significantly less than full-time licensed teachers. These staffers perform various roles, such as assisting teachers in their classrooms through tutoring, helping to manage student behaviors or organizing instructional materials.

To address the paraprofessional turnover challenge and hopefully improve paraeducator retention, Cypher says that MAASE developed paraeducator standards with CEC. Since March, the Michigan association has trained nearly 5,000 paraeducators through this new professional development program, she says.

Special education administrators in schools don’t always have the capacity to provide high-quality professional development for their paraprofessionals, Cypher says. The new training empowers those administrators, including instructing them separately on how to effectively and consistently train staff across their districts.

But targeted training needs to go beyond paraprofessionals and special education administrators.

Prospective special education teachers, during their clinical training, should work with mentor teachers who are certified in special education, Peske says. This strategy has been proven to boost a new teacher’s efficacy in the classroom later on, she adds.

School principals also need more training in special education, according to industry experts and leaders. That is especially true given that special education teachers often cite a lack of support from their building administrators as a factor for leaving, says Natasha Veale, a special education leadership consultant.

States should require principal preparation programs to include more content and instruction on special education, Veale says.

And districts should provide principals with professional and personal development opportunities to help foster relationships with their special education teachers, she says.

Veale expresses optimism about the future of special education staffing given the increasing conversations at education conferences she’s seen about integrating a deeper understanding of special education issues more into school leadership.

Michigan is looking to tackle the leadership challenge through a new 18-month program called Developing Inclusive Leaders. This initiative, also from the Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education, trains principals and building administrators on special education law, inclusive practices and collaboration with educators, families and communities.

A year into the program, Cypher said the association is already starting to see meaningful gains in school leaders’ knowledge of and confidence with overseeing school inclusion practices.

Developing pipelines

In recent years, grow-your-own programs have gained steam as an innovative approach for recruiting and retaining teachers across all instructional areas.

While these programs vary by district and state, they typically focus on bringing high school students into the education field or moving paraprofessionals into fully professional positions. Such initiatives can offer college tuition assistance to prospective teachers as they gain classroom experience working alongside veteran teachers — with the ultimate goal of earning a teaching degree or certification.

Illinois alone has 15,000 paraprofessionals with a bachelor’s degree, says Daniel Maggin, associate dean of research and professor in special education at the University of Illinois Chicago. If the state trained all those paraprofessionals as special education teachers, he said, its special educator shortage would be solved and there would even be a surplus.

That’s because paraprofessionals represent the group with the most accessible and fastest on-ramp for getting a special education license and endorsement, Maggin says.

Those professionals are local and they’re right there, and they’re familiar with students in the area, and it just makes more sense to capitalize on that population.

Natasha Veale

Special education leadership consultant

While that gives Maggin hope about addressing Illinois’ special education teacher shortage, he says it’s still unclear how the state could train that many people — and where the money would come from to do so. Such an effort would require district, state and federal support, he says.

Veale says most paraprofessionals have a strong desire to teach in special education full time, so grow-your-own programs for these staffers can be “a great way” to help alleviate the shortage.

“Those professionals are local and they’re right there, and they’re familiar with students in the area, and it just makes more sense to capitalize on that population,” Veale says.

Districts and states are indeed using the model to build up the special educator pipeline.

In 2024, Arizona launched two grow-your-own programs for special educators. One program offers tuition reimbursement to school districts for general education teachers who want to move into special education. Another Arizona program provides tuition reimbursement to school districts helping paraprofessionals earn a teaching certificate in the field.

And two years before that, North Dakota invested in an online grow-your-own program that trains paraprofessionals in rural areas to become licensed full-time special education teachers.

A group of high school students from Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District in Michigan participate in a paraprofessional boot camp together in April 2025.

Permission granted by Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education

In Michigan, grow-your-own programs often focus on training paraprofessionals for full-time and licensed teaching roles, according to Cypher. But without a pipeline to backfill their roles, that can lead to a deficit in paraprofessionals, she says.

To address that gap, Cypher says, the Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education worked with the state education department to help high schoolers participate in a similar grow-your-own program, known as a paraprofessional boot camp, that started in March 2025.

The boot camp is offered as a career and technical education course where high school students train and work in elementary schools for several hours in a day. Then after graduating high school, they can immediately step into a paraprofessional role.

This new initiative not only helps fill paraprofessional positions but could lead to more interest in full-time special educator roles, Cypher says. “Once students have access to those standards on being a paraeducator, it might entice them to consider going into teaching as well.”

News Graphics Developer Julia Himmel contributed data and graphics support to this story.

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November 25, 2025
Will Trump policies exacerbate the special education teacher shortage?

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Teacher preparation experts fear ongoing special education teacher shortages will worsen as the Trump administration continues to downsize the U.S. Department of Education.

Along with mass layoffs at the federal agency, proposals to consolidate federal grants for training special educators are fueling concerns that these moves will exacerbate critical staffing issues.

During the 2024-25 school year alone, 45 states reported shortages in special education — the most frequently reported shortage area nationwide, according to Learning Policy Institute. The other most common shortages reported by states include science (41), math (40), language arts (38), world languages (35) and career and technical education (33), LPI found.

A wave of layoffs in October at the Education Department that decimated most of the Office of Special Education Programs — a decision that is currently tied up in the courts — sent shockwaves throughout the special education community. OSEP helps administer and oversee the distribution of federal funds through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

One of the grants impacted by these changes in particular is IDEA Part D for personnel development to improve services for children with disabilities.

The IDEA Part D personnel development grants received $115 million in federal appropriations during fiscal year 2024. Under the Trump administration’s FY 26 proposal, that same program would be zeroed out, and the newly allocated funds would go to IDEA Part B programs into a single state block grant program.

The budget proposal stated that even with this consolidation of funds, “states would continue to meet key IDEA accountability and reporting requirements aimed at ensuring a free appropriate public education is available to all students with disabilities and protecting the rights of those students and their families.”

Regardless, there’s minimal support in Congress for this kind of state block grant program, as both the House and Senate appropriations committees have rejected the measures in their budget planning for FY 26.

These IDEA Part D funds are typically awarded for five years to state education agencies, school districts, higher education institutions and nonprofits.

On top of challenges for OSEP to oversee the IDEA Part D personnel preparation funds while it is shortstaffed, experts and advocates say the Trump administration’s budget proposal to consolidate IDEA Part D into state block grants will harm teacher prep programs’ ability to train high-quality special educators.

The changes this year are of particular concern for Laurie VanderPloeg, associate executive director for professional affairs at the Council for Exceptional Children, who said the absence of IDEA Part D preparation program funds could reduce the number of special education teacher candidates in educator preparation programs.

Even at current enrollment levels in special education teaching programs, VanderPloeg said, there’s still not enough people in the pipeline to meet the demands in the field.

“So with the reduction in enrollment in the educator prep programs, it’s going to reduce our national flexibility with being able to fill all of the open positions with good, qualified personnel,” said VanderPloeg, who also served as director of OSEP during the first Trump administration.

The uncertainty around IDEA Part D grant funds is also hanging over the heads of educator preparation programs, leaving many wondering how long these federal dollars dedicated to training special educators will last, VanderPloeg said. If these grants are disrupted, she said, there could be other implications for teaching candidates currently enrolled in programs that benefit from the funds.

“Would they be able to complete the program in the absence of having funding availability?” VanderPloeg asked. “Would it put them into a position where they would have to financially support themselves through the completion of the program?”

Still, the Trump administration has suggested its efforts to eliminate the Education Department and give more control to the states will not impact instructional services for students with disabilities. President Donald Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon have named the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a potential agency to take on special education oversight from the Education Department. But there is no official plan in place to make such a move yet.

Marquita Grenot-Scheyer, former chairperson of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education board of directors, also said that the Education Department shakeups impacting special education will only make the declining enrollment in special education teacher training programs worse.

Educator preparation programs are worried about how these cuts will further strain working conditions for special educators, she said — and that’s especially the case if there’s less federal funding for technical assistance and possible increased class sizes in special education programs. At the same time, an analysis of federal data by The Advocacy Institute found that the number of students with disabilities, ages 3-21, could jump by about 1 million students between 2021 and 2025.

VanderPloeg agrees that those workforce strains exist, noting that the optics of these drastic changes to federal special education programs could cause those training in the field to question if there will be adequate resources and professional development opportunities to support them as they enter the profession. The cuts in funds and staffing for oversight to bolster the special education teacher pipeline sends a message to prospective teachers that may deter them from pursuing a career in the field, she said.

“So many of our university programs are uncertain with how best to address this or plan for the future — not only from a recruitment perspective into their educator prep programs, but certainly from a staff perspective as well,” VanderPloeg said.

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November 13, 2025
Week In Review: Special education debates ramp up
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Most clicked story of the week:

The U.S. Department of Education’s downsizing under the Trump administration has intensified debate among parents, special education advocates and policy experts about the federal government’s role in serving students with disabilities. Some critics of the Education Department’s Office of Special Education Programs say an overhaul is needed to improve responsiveness to parents’ concerns and school districts’ needs, while others have called for the office, which oversees implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, to be eliminated altogether.

Advocates, however, have warned that shrinking the department would “decimate implementation of key education and disability laws.”

Number of the week:

6%

The size of enrollment declines in Wisconsin for the 2025-26 school year, based on preliminary unaudited state data recorded in September and compared to the same time the previous school year. That amounts to about 46,180 students. Numerous states and districts nationwide are seeing enrollment trend downward due to factors such as declining birthrates and competition from school choice initiatives.

Policies in the spotlight
- California’s McKinleyville Union School District was making progress on a key mental health initiative, having won a $7.2 million grant in October 2024 from the U.S. Department of Education that would help it hire the equivalent of six full-time credentialed school social workers, psychologists or counselors over the next five years. The funds were also expected to help the district hire three full-time instructional coaches to implement a multi-tiered system of supports. However, almost five months into its mental healthcare system overhaul, the rug was pulled out from under the district’s plans when the Trump administration canceled those school mental health grants.
- There’s still no official plan from the Trump administration to move special education oversight from the U.S. Department of Education to another federal agency such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Over the past several weeks, however, advocates have sent multiple letters and hosted online forums to stave off such a transition.
- All Colorado public school students will continue to have access to free school meals after voters on Tuesday approved two state referendums, one of which — Proposition MM — will raise state income taxes for those earning an annual income of $300,000 or more. Backed by 58% of voters, Proposition MM will increase the average income tax by $486 for Colorado residents at that income threshold, providing an expected additional $95 million in annual revenue for the state to continue funding its universal school meals program approved by voters in 2022.
What’s working in classrooms?
- Some upsides of using artificial intelligence chatbots to help students improve writing and studying skills are that these tools can act as coaches or mentors when humans aren’t available, offering generic but reasonably good and “relatively creative” feedback to middle and high school students during brainstorming, says Sarah Levine, assistant professor at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. On the other hand, she says, students sometimes “hand over the thinking work” of writing to bots, which create the end product quickly — and “they can do B-plus work all the time.”
- Teachers and school leaders can take certain approaches to ensure students with autism thrive in the classroom. Among the best practices are direct and multisensory instruction, role-playing and modeling behaviors, employing a variety of communication strategies, and being sensitive to overstimulating situations.
- Despite state and district leaders making significant progress in closing student access gaps to devices, internet and other technology, these gains haven’t led to “meaningful improvements in teaching and learning,” according to a report from the State Educational Technology Directors Association and other education organizations. The report said a “digital use divide” is persisting, at least partially due to a lack of sustained teacher professional development to help students engage in deeper learning experiences through technology — especially as AI becomes more prevalent.
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November 10, 2025
Podcast: Skills White Paper special

This week on the podcast we get across the Westminster government’s post-16 white paper – its headline target of two-thirds of young people in higher-level learning by 25, the plan to index the undergraduate fee cap to inflation (with TEF-linked eligibility), the maintenance package holding to the status quo, and a push for institutional specialisation via research funding alongside changes to access, participation, and regulation.

We ask whether these levers add up – will automatic indexation and selective controls actually stabilise university finances while widening opportunity, or do TEF-conditioned fee rises, classroom-based foundation year limits, and OfS expansion risk new “cold spots”, tighter choice, and a tougher deal on student maintenance?

Plus we discuss the proposed international student levy and quid-pro-quo on quality; tougher franchising rules and agent oversight; a “statement of expectations” on student accommodation; governance and TPS pressures; and much much more.

With Debbie McVitty, Editor, Wonkhe, David Kernohan, Deputy Editor, Wonkhe, Jim Dickinson, Associate Editor, Wonkhe, Michael Salmon, News Editor, Wonkhe, and presented by Mark Leach, Editor-in-Chief, Wonkhe.

<a href="https://rss.com/podcasts/the-wonkhe-show">The Wonkhe Show | RSS.com</a>

What is in the post-16 education and skills white paper for higher education?

You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, Deezer, RadioPublic, Podchaser, Castbox, Player FM, Stitcher, TuneIn, Luminary or via your favourite app with the RSS feed.

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October 20, 2025
Parents, advocates alarmed as Trump leverages shutdown to gut special education department

Two months after Education Secretary Linda McMahon was confirmed, she and a small team from the department met with leadership from the National Center for Learning Disabilities, an advocacy group that works on behalf of millions of students with dyslexia and other disorders.

Jacqueline Rodriguez, NCLD’s chief executive officer, recalled pressing McMahon on a question raised during her confirmation hearing: Was the Trump administration planning to move control and oversight of special education law from the Education Department to Health and Human Services?

Rodriguez was alarmed at the prospect of uprooting the 50-year-old Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), which spells out the responsibility of schools to provide a “free, appropriate public education” to students with disabilities. Eliminating the Education Department entirely is a primary objective of Project 2025, the conservative blueprint that has guided much of the administration’s education policy. After the department is gone, Project 2025 said oversight of special education should move to HHS, which manages some programs that help adults with disabilities.

But the sprawling department that oversees public health has no expertise in the complex education law, Rodriguez told McMahon.

“Someone might be able to push the button to disseminate funding, but they wouldn’t be able to answer a question from a parent or a school district,” she said in an interview later.

For her part, McMahon had wavered during her confirmation hearing on the subject. “I’m not sure that it’s not better served in HHS, but I don’t know,” she told Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who shared concerns from parents worried about who would enforce the law’s provisions.

But nine days into a government shutdown that has furloughed most federal government workers, the Trump administration announced that it was planning a drastic “reduction in force” that would lay off more than 450 people, including almost everyone who works in the Office of Special Education Programs. Rodriguez believes the layoffs are a way that the administration plans to force the special education law to be managed by some other federal office.

Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education.

The Education Department press office did not respond to a question about the administration’s plans for special education oversight. Instead, the press office pointed to a social media post from McMahon on Oct. 15. The fact that schools are “operating as normal” during the government shutdown, McMahon wrote on X, “confirms what the President has said: the federal Department of Education is unnecessary.”’

Yet in that May meeting, Rodriguez said she was told that HHS might not be the right place for IDEA, she recalled. While the new department leadership made no promises, they assured her that any move of the law’s oversight would have to be done with congressional approval, Rodriguez said she was told.

The move to gut the office overseeing special education law was shocking to families and those who work with students with disabilities. About 7.5 million children ages 3 to 21 are served under IDEA, and the office had already lost staffers after the Trump administration dismissed nearly half the Education Department’s staff in March, bringing the agency’s total workforce to around 2,200 people.

For Rodriguez, whose organization supports students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia, McMahon’s private assurances was the administration “just outright lying to the public about their intentions.”

“The audacity of this administration to communicate in her confirmation, in her recent testimony to Congress and to a disability rights leader to her face, ‘Don’t worry, we will support kids with disabilities,’” Rodriguez said. “And then to not just turn a 180-degree on that, but to decimate the ability to enforce the law that supports our kids.”

She added: “It could not just be contradictory. It feels like a bait and switch.”

Five days after the firings were announced, a U.S. district judge temporarily blocked the administration’s actions, setting up a legal showdown that is likely to end up before the Supreme Court. The high court has sided with the president on most of his efforts to drastically reshape the federal workforce. And President Donald Trump said at a Tuesday press briefing that more cuts to “Democrat programs” are coming.

“They’re never going to come back in many cases,” he added.

Related: Hundreds of thousands of students are entitled to training and help finding jobs. They don’t get it

In her post on X, McMahon also said that “no education funding is impacted by the RIF, including funding for special education,” referring to the layoffs.

But special education is more than just money, said Danielle Kovach, a special education teacher in Hopatcong, N.J. Kovach is also a former president of the Council for Exceptional Children, a national organization for special educators.

“I equate it to, what would happen if we dismantled a control tower at a busy airport?” Kovach said. “It doesn’t fly the plane. It doesn’t tell people where to go. But it ensures that everyone flies smoothly.”

Katy Neas, a deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services during the Biden administration, said that most people involved in the education system want to do right by children.

“You can’t do right if you don’t know what the answer is,” said Neas, who is now the chief executive officer of The Arc of the United States, which advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. “You can’t get there if you don’t know how to get your questions answered.”

Families also rely on IDEA’s mandate that each child with a disability receives a free, appropriate public education — and the protections that they can receive if a school or district does not live up to that requirement.

Maribel Gardea, a parent in San Antonio, said she fought with her son’s school district for years over accommodations for his disability. Her son Voozeki, 14, has cerebral palsy and is nonverbal. He uses an eye-gaze device that allows him to communicate when he looks at different symbols on a portable screen. The district resisted getting the device for him to use at school until, Gardea said, she reminded them of IDEA’s requirements.

“That really stood them up,” she said.

Related: Trump wants to shake up education. What that could mean for a charter school started by a GOP senator’s wife

Gardea, the co-founder of MindShiftED, an organization that helps parents become better advocates for their children with disabilities, said the upheaval at the Education Department has her wondering what kind of advice she can give families now.

For example, an upcoming group session will teach parents how to file official grievances to the federal government if they have disputes with their child’s school or district about services. Now, she has to add in an explanation of what the deep federal cuts will mean for parents.

Voozeki Gardea, who attends school in the San Antonio area, uses an eye-gaze communication device with the assistance of school paraprofessional Vanessa Martinez. The device verbalizes words and phrases when Voozeki looks at different symbols. Credit: Courtesy Maribel Gardea

“I have to tell you how to do a grievance,” she said she plans to tell parents. “But I have to tell you no one will answer.”

Maybe grassroots organizations may find themselves trying to track parent complaints on their own, she said, but the prospect is exhausting. “It’s a really gross feeling to know that no one has my back.”

In addition to the office that oversees special education law, the Rehabilitation Services Administration, which is also housed at the Department of Education and supports employment and training of people with disabilities, was told most of its staff would be fired.

“Regardless of which office you’re worried about, this is all very intentional,” said Julie Christensen, the executive director of the Association of People Supporting Employment First, which advocates for the full inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce. “There’s no one who can officially answer questions. It feels like that was kind of the intent, to just create a lot of confusion and chaos.”

Those staffers “are the voice within the federal government to make sure policies and funding are aligned to help people with disabilities get into work,” Christensen said. Firing them, she added, is counterintuitive to everything the administration says it cares about.

For now, advocates say they are bracing for a battle similar to those fought decades ago that led to the enactment of civil rights law protecting children and adults with disabilities. Before the law was passed, there was no federal guarantee that a student with a disability would be allowed to attend public school.

“We need to put together our collective voices. It was our collective voices that got us here,” Kovach said.

And, Rodriguez said, parents of children in special education need to be prepared to be their own watchdogs. “You have to become the compliance monitor.”

It’s unfair, she said, but necessary.

Contact staff writer Christina Samuels at 212-678-3635 or [email protected].

This story about special education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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October 17, 2025
Trump Administration Fires Nearly All Staff Overseeing Special Education Programs

The U.S. Department of Education has terminated nearly every employee in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in a sweeping wave of layoffs that began Friday, according to the union representing agency staff—a move that advocates say will devastate services for millions of students with disabilities.

While the agency has not provided official numbers, reports from staff and managers indicate that most employees below the leadership level in the division were eliminated, said Rachel Gittleman, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252. Employees in the college access program known as TRIO, housed in a different office, were also let go.

The union has challenged the firings in court, arguing they “double down on the harm to K-12 students and schools across the country,” Gittleman told USA TODAY.

Education Department spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment. However, Education Secretary Linda McMahon has previously stated that safeguarding students with disabilities and ensuring their access to legally mandated educational resources is a top priority. “I would like to see even more funding go to the states for that,” she told CNN in March.

In a Friday court filing, the Justice Department confirmed that more than 460 Education Department employees had been laid off, cutting roughly one-fifth of the agency’s workforce. The terminations, which have affected more than half a dozen federal agencies, are part of a broader Trump administration effort to pressure congressional Democrats to end the ongoing government shutdown. Nearly 90% of the Education Department remains furloughed.

The agency eliminated nearly every employee responsible for administering funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)—the primary federal law supporting students with disabilities. The staffer expressed uncertainty about how these programs will continue to function.

Secretary McMahon has suggested that oversight of IDEA funding might be better positioned within the Department of Health and Human Services rather than at the Education Department, though officially moving it would require congressional action.

The mass firings have drawn sharp criticism from education equity advocates who warn of dire consequences for vulnerable students.

“The Trump administration’s attack on public education continued this weekend as students with disabilities are at risk of losing the services, supports, and oversight that protect their civil rights,” said Denise Forte, president and CEO of The Education Trust.

“The administration’s unfathomable decision to fire all employees who administer the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) abandons the 7.5 million students with disabilities and their families,” Forte continued. “Roughly 15% of public school students have a disability, and federal enforcement of IDEA is crucial to ensuring that these students receive a free and appropriate public education.”

Forte said that the layoffs will have particularly significant consequences for students of color with disabilities, who already face greater barriers to accessing services and are subjected to disproportionately harsher discipline.

“This is a direct assault on all parents of and students with disabilities and all students and families who know that an excellent education system is a diverse and inclusive one,” Forte said. “I call on the Trump administration to reverse these cuts immediately.”

The firings come amid widespread disruption across the Education Department, which has also experienced problems with financial aid administration following earlier rounds of layoffs.

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October 13, 2025
RIFs rip through federal Office of Special Education Programs

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During this tumultuous year at the U.S. Department of Education that saw about half of the 4,133 employees leave due to layoffs, buyouts and early retirements, the staff at the Office of Special Education Programs stayed mostly stable.

That changed on Friday, however, when the Trump administration issued reduction-in-force notices across the federal government, including at the Education Department. Court filings show that 466 employees at the Education Department were impacted and several special education association leaders say most of the OSEP staff was laid off.

On Friday, the department’s press office confirmed that the RIFs affected staff at the Education Department but did not provide more details.

The National Association of State Directors of Special Education, in a statement on Sunday, said informal reports that NASDSE believes to be true indicate that only the two most senior staff remain in OSEP and just one staff member remains in the Rehabilitation Services Administration. Both offices are part of the Education Department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

NASDSE said it was “confused and concerned” by the staffing changes, adding that the Education Department under the Trump administration has repeatedly said it supports federal funding and implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and special education for children with disabilities.

“These RIFs, if true, will make it impossible for the Department to fulfill those responsibilities,” the NASDSE statement said. “There is significant risk that not only will Federal funding lapse, but children with disabilities will be deprived” of a free, appropriate public education.

Like NASDSE, several other organizations in the special education field wondered how the Education Department would support special education services across the country with such a limited staff.

“The rumored near elimination of the Office for Special Education Programs is absolutely devastating to the education of people with disabilities,” said Chad Rummel, executive director of the Council for Exceptional Children, in an email on Saturday.

Rummel said OSEP’s oversight, technical assistance and accountability efforts are critical to supporting the implementation of IDEA, which celebrates its 50th anniversary next month. About 8.4 million infants, toddlers, children and young adults received services under IDEA in 2023.

“Eliminating federal capacity to support IDEA is harmful to people with disabilities, their families, and the professionals who serve them, and it runs counter to everything our members work toward every day,” he said.

Myrna Mandlawitz, policy and legislative consultant for the Council of Administrators of Special Education, said on Sunday that the OSEP staff reductions will put an “extreme burden on states and locals that are already really stretched.”

IDEA, Mandlawitz noted, is implemented collectively by local, state and federal agencies. The federal staff reductions take away “one very vital piece of the partnership. It’s just hard to understand how it can possibly function,” she said.

Promises to protect special education

The RIFs came two weeks into the federal government shutdown that began Oct. 1 as Congress remains at a funding impasse for fiscal year 2026. During the shutdown, the Education Department planned to furlough about 95% of its non-Federal Student Aid staff for the first week, according to a Sept. 28 memo from U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon.

Federal staff are not paid during a government shutdown, but typically receive retroactive compensation. However, there are reports that the Trump administration may try to withhold back pay for this current shutdown, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing over 820,000 workers in nearly every agency of the federal government.

McMahon said in the memo that school systems could still draw down federal grants awarded over the summer and processing would continue for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Title I and IDEA grants would be distributed as well.

However, the agency is pausing Office for Civil Rights investigations, new grant-making activities and technical assistance support during the shutdown.

For several months, McMahon has repeatedly told Congress that federal funding for special education activities would be protected. The Trump administration’s proposed FY 26 budget level funded IDEA at $15.5 billion despite an overall 15% drop in the recommended agency budget.

The Education Department, in an April 28 letter to Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., said no employees in OSEP or at RSA were subject to massive layoffs at the agency that took place on March 11.

Nonetheless, McMahon and Trump have voiced support for moving special education programming out of the Education Department and into the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. No plan has been publicly released, and opponents say such a move would require congressional approval. Court documents show that between 1,100 and 1,200 employees at HHS were expected to receive RIF notices on Friday.

The broader layoffs and the talk of moving special education programs are in line with vows from candidate and now-President Donald Trump to shutter the Education Department. Trump’s stated aim is to reduce federal bureaucracy and to give states and school districts more authority in education funding decisions.

This summer, about a dozen former federal senior special education officials wrote to Congress urging that lawmakers reject transferring oversight of special education services out of the Education Department. The former officials and others said keeping special education within the Education Department is essential for properly implementing IDEA regulations.

Looking back at OSEP

Before Friday’s RIFs, morale at OSEP was already at a low point, say former OSEP employees and others familiar with the office.

Larry Wexler, who retired last year as OSEP director of research to practice, said he had talked with current and former OSEP employees before and after Friday’s RIFs.

“If the mood could be described as despondent, it would be such an improvement over what it is,” Wexler said on Sunday. “These people are shattered.”

Former and current OSEP staff have also been saddened by the death of long-time OSEP official Gregg Corr, who died Sept. 28 from an aggressive form of lung cancer. His friends, family and former OSEP colleagues gathered for his memorial service Oct. 11 in Washington, D.C., to pay tribute to his life, including his 38 years at OSEP.

When Corr retired from OSEP in December 2024, he said, “My time in OSEP has been nothing short of extraordinary,” according to his obituary. Corr added that during his career he visited nearly every state, connecting with state offices, local programs, parents and advocates.

“These experiences have been deeply inspiring and have strengthened my belief in the importance of the work we do. Hearing firsthand from families about the impact of our efforts has been both humbling and motivating,” Corr said. “Over the years, I’ve witnessed remarkable progress in the field, yet I know there is still so much more to achieve.”

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October 12, 2025
Is gamification the key to achieving true inclusion in special education?

Key points:

For students with special needs, learning can often resemble a trek through dense woods along a narrow, rigid path–one that leaves little to no room for individual exploration. But the educational landscape is evolving. Picture classrooms as adventurous hunts, where every learner charts their own journey, overcomes unique challenges, and progresses at a pace that matches their strengths. This vision is becoming reality through gamification, a powerful force that is reshaping how students learn and how teachers teach in K–12 special education.

Personalized learning paths: Tailoring the adventure

Traditional classrooms often require students to adapt one method of instruction, which can be limiting–especially for neurodiverse learners. Gamified learning platforms provide an alternative by offering adaptive, personalized learning experiences that honor each student’s profile and pace.

Many of these platforms use real-time data and algorithms to adjust content based on performance. A student with reading difficulties might receive simplified text with audio support, while a math-savvy learner can engage in increasingly complex logic puzzles. This flexibility allows students to move forward without fear of being left behind, or without being bored waiting for others to catch up.

Accessibility features such as customizable avatars, voice commands, and adjustable visual settings also create space for students with ADHD, autism, or sensory sensitivities to learn comfortably. A student sensitive to bright colors can use a softer palette; another who struggles with reading can use text-to-speech features. And when students can replay challenges without stigma, repetition becomes practice, not punishment.

In these environments, progress is measured individually. The ability to choose which goals to tackle and how to approach them gives learners both agency and confidence–two things often missing in traditional special education settings.

Building social and emotional skills: The power of play

Play is a break from traditional learning and a powerful way to build essential social and emotional skills. For students with special needs who may face challenges with communication, emotional regulation, or peer interaction, gamified environments provide a structured yet flexible space to develop these abilities.

In cooperative hunts and team challenges, students practice empathy, communication, and collaboration in ways that feel engaging and low-stakes. A group mission might involve solving a puzzle together, requiring students to share ideas, encourage one another, and work toward a common goal.

Gamified platforms also provide real-time, constructive feedback, transforming setbacks into teachable moments. Instead of pointing out what a student did wrong, a game might offer a helpful hint: “Try checking the clues again!” This kind of support teaches resilience and persistence in a way that lectures or punitive grading rarely do.

As students earn badges or level up, they experience tangible success. These moments highlight the connection between effort and achievement. Over time, these small wins raise a greater willingness to engage with the material and with peers and the classroom community.

Fostering independence and motivation

Students with learning differences often carry the weight of repeated academic failure, which can chip away at their motivation. Gamification helps reverse this by reframing challenges as opportunities and effort as progress.

Badges, points, and levels make achievements visible and meaningful. A student might earn a “Problem Solver” badge after tackling a tricky math puzzle or receive “Teamwork Tokens” for helping a classmate. These systems expand the definition of success and highlight personal strengths.

The focus shifts from comparison to self-improvement. Some platforms even allow for private progress tracking, letting students set and meet personal goals without the anxiety of public rankings. Instead of competing, students build a personal narrative of growth.

Gamification also encourages self-directed learning. As student complete tasks, they develop skills like planning, time management, and self-assessment, skills that extend beyond academics and into real life. The result is a deeper sense of ownership and independence.

Teachers as learning guides

Gamification doesn’t replace teachers, but it can help teach more effectively. With access to real-time analytics, educators can see exactly where a student is excelling or struggling and adjust instruction accordingly.

Dashboards might reveal that a group of students is thriving in reading comprehension but needs help with number sense, prompting immediate, targeted intervention. This data-driven insight allows for proactive, personalized support.

Teachers in gamified classrooms also take on a new role, both of a mentor and facilitator. They curate learning experiences, encourage exploration, and create opportunities for creativity and curiosity to thrive. Instead of managing behavior or delivering lectures, they support students on individualized learning journeys.

Inclusion reimagined

Gamification is not a gimmick; it’s a framework for true inclusion. It aligns with the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), offering multiple ways for students to engage, process information, and show what they know. It recognizes that every learner is different, and builds that into the design.

Of course, not every gamified tool is created equal. Thoughtful implementation, equity in access, and alignment with student goals are essential. But when used intentionally, gamification can turn classrooms into places where students with diverse needs feel seen, supported, and excited to learn.

Are we ready to level up?

Gamification is a step toward classrooms that work for everyone. For students with special needs, it means learning at their own pace, discovering their strengths, and building confidence through meaningful challenges.

For teachers, it’s a shift from directing traffic to guiding adventurers.

If we want education to be truly inclusive, we must go beyond accommodations and build systems where diversity is accepted and celebrated. And maybe, just maybe, that journey begins with a game.

Aditya Prakash, SKIDOS

Aditya Prakash is the founder and CEO of SKIDOS, a Copenhagen-based edtech leader transforming mobile gaming into learning, drawing on two decades of innovation, investment, and mentorship in technology-driven education.

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August 25, 2025
Proposal would remove federal data collection for special education racial disparities

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The U.S. Department of Education is proposing to remove a requirement for states to collect and report on racial disparities in special education, according to a notice being published in the Federal Register on Friday.

The data collection is part of the annual state application under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The application provides assurances that the state and its districts will comply with IDEA rules as a condition for receiving federal IDEA funding.

The data collection for racial overrepresentation or underrepresentation in special education — known as significant disproportionality — helps identify states and districts that have racial disparities among student special education identifications, placements and discipline. About 5% of school districts nationwide were identified with significant disproportionality in the 2020-21 school year, according to federal data.

The Education Department said it wants to remove the data collection because the agency anticipates it will reduce paperwork burdens for the states. According to several state Part B applications filed earlier this year, the significant disproportionality data collection adds more hours in paperwork duties.

For example, Florida’s application said it records an average of 25 additional hours for responses reporting data related to significant disproportionality in any given year, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Alabama’s and Oregon’s applications also cite an additional 25 hours each for the collections.

The department has not said it wants to rescind or pause the significant disproportionality regulation, a rule known as Equity in IDEA, which was last updated in 2016.

However, under the first Trump administration, the rule became a hot button issue when then-U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said its implementation would be delayed.

The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a nonprofit supportive of education rights for students with disabilities, sued the Education Department and won, and by April 2019, the rule was back in full effect.

Denise Marshall, CEO of COPAA said in a Thursday email to K-12 Dive that the proposal to remove the Equity in IDEA federal data collection was “yet another unlawful attempt by the Administration to shirk its obligations under the law to students of color.”

Marshall added that the data collection fulfills a critical role in enforcing the significant disproportionality requirement in IDEA. The collection allows states and districts to examine the data, determine if there is racial disproportionality, and develop measures to address the problem. Marshall points out that IDEA does not declare significant disproportionality unlawful. Rather, the law and regulations provide a method for states and districts to address systemic racial disproportionality in special education.

Robyn Linscott, director of education and family policy at The Arc, an organization that advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, said that even if in the future there is no longer a data collection for significant disproportionality at the federal level, the information would still need to be collected by states and districts as required by IDEA.

But the loss of the central repository of information on significant disproportionality in schools will make it more difficult for advocacy groups and technical assistance centers to support school and district efforts to reduce racial disparities in special education.

In the absence of the data being available at the federal level, it will be “much more difficult” for people not within a state education agency to be able to access the data, Linscott said.

Correction: A previous version of this article erred in spelling out the IDEA acronym. It stands for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. We have updated our story.

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August 22, 2025
Shocking Cancellation of a Special Journal Issue (opinion)

Rumors are swirling about the extent to which Harvard University will acquiesce to the Trump administration’s attempt to crush institutions of higher education. Until very recently Harvard was being publicly lauded for standing up to the government. Reports that Harvard may be willing to pay a sizable financial settlement to resolve legal accusations that it allowed antisemitism and promoted diversity policies were shocking to many. But the university’s purported resistance to government overreach already had a glaring exception—Palestine—and we as scholars who work on the subject have recently experienced it firsthand.

The Harvard Educational Review was set to release a special issue this summer focusing on education and Palestine. The topic, commissioned in early 2024, was timely in the wake of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, which rights groups and other experts have concluded is a genocide, and aligned with the journal’s commitment to publishing research that tackles the most pressing issues facing education. The articles had been accepted, edited and contracted. The special issue had already been promoted at major education conferences and on the back cover of the spring issue of the HER. But suddenly, Harvard pulled the plug.

As recently reported in The Guardian, the Harvard Education Publishing Group (HEPG), which publishes the Review, abruptly and unilaterally decided to cancel the forthcoming special issue.

We wrote one of the articles that was supposed to be published in the special issue. Our article, one of 10 slated for publication, focused on the experiences of Palestinian teachers during the Lebanese civil war. But in May, as the special issue was nearing publication, we were surprised to find out that HEPG wanted to submit the entire issue to Harvard’s Office of the General Counsel for an exceptional and last-minute “risk” review. Articles had already been through the regular publishing process and were under contract. At no point to our knowledge had any “risk”-related concerns been raised about any of them. An additional review was therefore well outside the realm of routine practice.

Alarmed by this move and the dangerous precedent of subjecting academic scholarship to vetting by university lawyers, all authors in the special issue organized and expressed unequivocal refusal to this additional review in a letter sent to HEPG.

After we expressed our refusal, HEPG went radio silent for almost a month. And then it canceled the whole issue, only then claiming that there were problems with copyediting and its internal process. But procedural claims have often been leveled to silence speech, especially when it comes to Palestine. Whatever concerns about the process, there is no justification for the cancellation of the entire special issue. HEPG’s decision is yet another example of the “Palestine exception” in action: the term used to describe how seemingly liberal institutions restrict freedom of expression when it comes to Palestine.

Given the timing of HEPG’s decision—which aligns with the Trump administration’s weaponizing of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act—this seems to be the logical outcome of a political climate that has promoted sweeping claims of antisemitism to attack student protesters and higher education institutions, including Harvard. In this climate it seems far more likely that HEPG opted for censorship over academic freedom.

Of particular concern is Harvard’s recent adoption of a problematic new definition of antisemitism. That definition, proposed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), has been roundly criticized by experts—and one of the authors of the definition—for equating critiques of the state of Israel with antisemitism. This conflation makes it harder to speak out against Israel’s actions and policies toward Palestinians and easier to victimize Palestinians. Harvard is not alone in this action.

Even before Israel’s latest brutal onslaught of Gaza, scholars writing and advocating for Palestinian rights confronted the limits of liberal empathy for Palestinians in the form of tenure denials, censored freedom of speech, doxing by pro-Israel groups and even death threats. But the repression of knowledge production and freedom of speech on Palestine has escalated since October 2023. U.S. universities and colleges (including Harvard) have canceled events that center Palestinian rights, attempted to censor scholarship, forcibly suppressed student protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza and beyond, and dismissed faculty over Palestine-related programming.

Still, the scrapping of this special issue marks a worrying escalation. It suggests that even those universities that are outspoken about their liberal values are ready to stifle academics’ legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and practices. Make no mistake: Anticipatory censorship of this kind is a hallmark of the governmental overreach that authoritarian regimes around the world are known for. As a growing number of higher education institutions adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, we fear we will see more and more examples of the suppression of academic freedom.

The consequences of this extend far beyond the academy. As the death toll in Gaza exceeds 60,000 and young people there face a third year without education amid ongoing bombardment, blockade and starvation, knowledge, debate and democratic action are essential to preventing the kind of horrors that are unfolding in Gaza today.

Thea Renda Abu El-Haj is a professor of education at Barnard College, Columbia University. Jo Kelcey is assistant professor of education in the Department of Psychology and Education at Lebanese American University.

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August 12, 2025