IDEA at Risk: Why Transferring Special Education Oversight to HHS Threatens Educational Equity

Enacted in 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) set out to provide children with disabilities access to free, appropriate public education (“FAPE”).^[1] Last month, IDEA began to face threats as the Trump administration announced its intentions to move special-education programs from the U.S. Department of Education (“DE”) to the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”)—a shift that critics warn could undermine, or even dismantle, decades of specialized oversight.^[2]  Transferring IDEA oversight to HHS would replace an education-based model of rights and accountability with a medical model of treatment, jeopardizing the federal standards that secure equitable educational opportunities for students with disabilities.

The federal government funds almost $15 billion a year under IDEA, which is distributed to states to enforce protections for students with disabilities, provided that they comply with the act’s requirements.^[3] This new framework suggests providing special education funding with no compulsory conditions attached, granting states and localities extensive freedom to redesign their special education services.^[4] This means that states and school systems could operate with significantly less federal control and monitoring to enforce student protections.^[5]

Critics of this change posit that HHS lacks the necessary education, expertise, and infrastructure to maintain consistent oversight nationwide.^[6] Without that federal supervision, states with limited resources or weaker systems may fall behind, leading to both inconsistency and inequity in access to protections for students with disabilities.^[7] Mass layoffs at the DE began last month, causing significant disturbances and concerns that the department’s statutory requirements will not be met.^[8] According to the DE’s June report, only nineteen states currently meet IDEA performance standards.^[9] With the lack of federal oversight, the gaps between these states could widen even further than before, as student access would depend almost entirely on where they live and on how committed the state is to protecting them.^[10] This reality only emphasizes the increased need for federal oversight; a reduction would likely allow struggling states to fall even further behind.^[11] Transferring this oversight to state agencies, without the cultivated skill sets of DE staff, may leave millions of students without consistent protections and resources.^[12] As a result, students denied proper individualized services will put thousands of districts at risk of much lower achievement outcomes, graduation rates, and college attendance rates.^[13]

Understanding the risks of this policy shift requires returning to the Supreme Court’s articulation of IDEA’s substantive obligations. The parents of Endrew F., a minor child diagnosed with autism, sought reimbursement for private school tuition after he was removed from the Douglas County School District, as they believed his progress both academically and functionally had stalled.^[14] Both the Federal District Court and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the parents’ claims, asserting that annual adjustments to Endrew's individualized education plans were sufficient to demonstrate, at the least, minimal progress.^[15] However, the Supreme Court vacated and remanded the judgment because a program providing such small levels of progress is insufficient as an education, and would be comparable to disabled students “sitting idly” in classrooms.^[16] They ultimately held that to satisfy its substantive obligation under IDEA, a school must offer a plan reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress “appropriate in light of the child's circumstances.”^[17]

The Supreme Court’s decision in Endrew underscores that IDEA guarantees students a pedagogical pathway to success—one designed, implemented, and overseen by an education-focused agency under a federally guided framework that ensures accountability.^[18] These pursuits are inherently reliant on educators and individuals with the relevant expertise, not medical personnel whose objectives center on diagnosis and care rather than pedagogy and development.^[19]  In other words, Endrew rests on the assumption that a federal agency with educational expertise will define and monitor student progress. Transferring IDEA to HHS—an agency built around medical care rather than pedagogy—would undermine that assumption and leave the Court’s standard without an effective means of enforcement.^[20]

While efficiency and agency collaboration are valuable goals, transferring oversight to HHS risks reconstructing education rights into health-care benefits, wearing away at decades of progress toward inclusion, accountability, and academic flourishment.^[21] Educators worry that oversight from HHS would frame special education students as medical dilemmas rather than counterparts in general education programs.^[22] Placing these students in medical frameworks sets back the pursuit to inclusion that educators have tirelessly worked to reach.^[23] They fear HHS will simply diagnose students and compress them through medical management rather than providing resources and guidance to succeed just as much as their peers.^[24]

Ultimately, at its core, IDEA is an educational statute that depends on educational expertise, federal accountability, and consistent national oversight.^[25] Transferring oversight to HHS would threaten the educational standards that Endrew promised.^[26] Safeguarding IDEA’s purpose demands reaffirming the ED’s central role and strengthening the federal structures that support true educational progress for all students.

^[1] Center for Parent Information & Resources, IDEA — the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, https://www.parentcenterhub.org/idea/ [perma.cc/SH4N-4PQT].

^[2] Tammy Kolbe & Elizabeth Dhuey, Trump Administration Weighs Future of Special Education Oversight and Funding, Bʀᴏᴏᴋɪɴɢs (May 6, 2025), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/trump-administration-weighs-future-of-special-education-oversight-and-funding/ [perma.cc/KDT8-BTYH].

^[3] Id.

^[4] Id.

^[5] Id.

^[6] Laura Meckler, Trump Administration Seeks to Move Special Education to Different Agency, Wᴀsʜ. Pᴏsᴛ (Oct. 21, 2025), https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/10/21/trump-special-education-move/ [perma.cc/TBE9-UEJW].

^[7] Id.

^[8] Kara Arundel, What to Know About the Education Department’s Latest Round of RIFs, K-12 Dɪᴠᴇ (Oct. 15, 2025), https://www.k12dive.com/news/education-department-layoffs-what-to-know-special-education-civil-rights-lawsuits/802779/ [perma.cc/YQ3C-6LBL].

^[9] U.S. Dᴇᴘ’ᴛ ᴏғ Eᴅᴜᴄ., 2025 Determination Letters on State Implementation of IDEA (June 20, 2025), https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/ideafactsheet-determinations-2025.pdf [perma.cc/KQ3Z-SCB7]; see also Anna Claire Vollers, Special Education Enforcement Would Be Up to States Under Trump Plan, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇʟɪɴᴇ (Nov. 4, 2025), https://stateline.org/2025/11/04/special-education-enforcement-would-be-up-to-states-under-trump-plan/[https://perma.cc/X8RK-UNM8].

^[10] Vollers, supra note 9.

^[11] Id.

^[12] Id.

^[13] Steve Holt, 50 Years After Mandated by U.S. Law, Special Education’s Future in Question, BU Scholar Says, BU Tᴏᴅᴀʏ (Oct. 28, 2025), https://www.bu.edu/articles/2025/bu-scholar-on-special-education-cuts/ [perma.cc/6CHM-LL4U].

^[14] Endrew F. ex rel. Joseph F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist. RE-1, 580 U.S. 386 (2017).

^[15] Id. at 396.

^[16] Id. at 403.

^[17] Id. at 399.

^[18] Id. at 404.

^[19] Abe Saffer, Eight Reasons the IDEA Should Remain at the Department of Education, AOTA (Mar. 7, 2025), https://www.aota.org/advocacy/advocacy-news/2025/eight-reasons-the-idea-should-remain-at-the-department-of-education [perma.cc/KZ9P-QK4J].

^[20] Jackie Dilworth, Why Moving IDEA to HHS Could Harm Students With Disabilities, Tʜᴇ Aʀᴄ (Mar. 24, 2025), https://thearc.org/blog/why-moving-idea-to-hhs-could-harm-students-with-disabilities/ [perma.cc/7VX2-FM6F].

^[21] Id.

^[22] Id.

^[23] Id.

^[24] Id.

^[25] Abe Saffer, supra note 19.

^[26] Endrew F. ex rel. Joseph F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist. RE-1, 580 U.S. 386, 399 (2017).