Today I read in The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/) an article indicating the Trump Administration is moving forward with plans to transfer the federal special education program authorized under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
It is a stupid move.
I say that as someone who helped draft IDEA ’97 and as someone who went through school before the passage of IDEA. I have cerebral palsy. I went through school before IDEA’s protections existed. I had no legal guarantees, no right to services, no assurance that I would be educated alongside my peers. What I had was a determined mother who refused to accept “no” for an answer.
When Congress reauthorized IDEA in 1997, we strengthened a simple but powerful principle: children with disabilities should learn alongside children without disabilities. They should attend the same schools, participate in the same programs, study the same curriculum, and be held to the same high expectations.
IDEA is fundamentally an education law premised on a civil right. It is about teaching, learning, achievement, graduation, and preparing young people for productive adult lives. It belongs in the Department of Education.
Moving IDEA to HHS makes no policy sense. Special education teachers, principals, school superintendents, and state education officials should not have to navigate a federal health bureaucracy to address educational issues. Likewise, I doubt HHS officials are eager to inherit a complex educational program that was never designed to be part of their mission.
The administration argues that IDEA can continue to operate under HHS. If that is true—and if the law must still be followed—then why move it at all? What problem is being solved?
The answer appears to be none.
Instead, this transfer risks confusion, disruption, and uncertainty for millions of students, families, educators, and school systems. At a time when schools are already struggling to meet growing needs, the federal government should be providing stability, not chaos.
The Trump Administration has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to test the limits of statutory authority, ignore congressional intent, and force courts to intervene. IDEA should not become another experiment in administrative disruption.
Almost every American knows someone with a disability—a child, grandchild, neighbor, colleague, or friend. This issue touches virtually every community in the nation.
I urge you to contact Senators Thom Tillis and Tim Kaine, leaders on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and ask them to oppose the transfer of IDEA from the Department of Education to HHS.
I know it is summertime. I know people have vacations, family obligations, and countless competing priorities. But protecting the educational rights of children with disabilities is worth a phone call, an email, or a letter.
If enough people speak up, Congress can stop this unnecessary and misguided move.
Please do your part.
Thank you.
Common Grounder
Patricia Morrissey
