US Education Department’s staff cuts could hurt families of kids with disabilities: Report
The US Department of Education’s staff cuts have made it increasingly difficult for parents of children with special needs to get access to the department’s staff, with anti-Semitism cases getting a higher priority, according to a report.
Last week, the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced they had reduced the workforce at the Department of Education in half, including in the Office for Civil Rights, whose employees are charged with assisting children with disabilities.
Linda McMahon, new Secretary of Education, said on Tuesday that the cuts will eliminate “bureaucratic bloat.”
“Today’s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most,” McMahon said in a statement last week.
Experts, however, argue that these so-called reforms will have an adverse effect on both students and teachers, especially for children with disabilities, according to a report by The Associated Press.
According to the Department of Education’s statistics, there are currently 20,000 unresolved education cases, most of which belong to children with disabilities.
The remaining employees have been tasked to prioritize educational cases that fall under the category of anti-Semitism, which further exacerbates the situation for students with disabilities and their parents.
During his presidential campaign and after coming to office, US President Donald Trump criticized the rampant “waste, fraud and abuse” across the government and vowed to reduce corruption by removing the parts of government that his administration deems wasteful.
“If there is waste, fraud and abuse, this administration has now eliminated the very agency that would provide oversight for that,” said attorney Sheria Smith, one of the hundreds of employees fired from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Tuesday.
The Trump administration’s officials insist the staff reductions will not affect civil rights investigations and the layoffs were “strategic decisions.”
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