The U.S. Department of Education. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)
The Education Department plans to move the offices that oversee special education services and civil rights out of the agency, part of the Trump administration’s effort to close the department by moving all its functions to other parts of the government, three people briefed on the plan said Tuesday.
The announcement was expected later in the day.
The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which oversees the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, will move to the Department of Health and Human Services, these people said. The Office for Civil Rights will move to the Justice Department. The three people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share news that was not yet public. An Education Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Education Department has already moved several of its offices to other parts of the government, with many of the K-12 programs operating out of the Labor Department under interagency agreements. These agreements allow Education to retain ultimate control of programs that Congress delegated to the department while functionally moving its operations and staff elsewhere.
The Education Department was created by Congress and cannot be closed without congressional approval. There’s been no movement on legislation that would close the department, and people in both parties say there is not enough support to pass a bill if one were advanced.
President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to close the Education Department, a longtime conservative goal. He regularly promises to “return education to the states.”
Most of these office moves have attracted scant public attention, as they are largely bureaucratic. But disability rights advocacy groups have lobbied hard against this move, fearing that a diminished office will mean less federal oversight of the states and, ultimately, fewer students receiving needed and federally mandated services.
“We have not seen what a proposed benefit of moving it out of the Department of Education would be,” said Chad Rummel, executive director of the Council for Exceptional Children. “They are making it move because it’s a campaign promise, not because it’s better for kids.”
He said parents and teachers have sent nearly 100,000 letters to members of Congress protesting the potential move, which the agency signaled was coming months ago.
The Office for Civil Rights handles some of the agency’s most sensitive work. It investigates complaints that students have been discriminated against based on their race, national origin, gender or disability status, among other things. The Trump administration has used the office to go after schools that allow transgender students to participate in athletics and that target students of color for special help.
Danielle Douglas-Gabriel contributed to this report.
