The U.S. Department of Education has begun outsourcing responsibility for overseeing the nation鈥檚 sprawling special education system and enforcing civil rights law in schools to other federal agencies, after months of previewing dramatic efforts to restructure both core functions.
Department officials announced the moves鈥攎ade possible by four new interagency agreements鈥攐n Tuesday morning to advocacy group representatives, and on Tuesday afternoon to reporters and the general public.
The Education Department office that oversees special education and employment programs for adults with disabilities will . The U.S. Department of Justice will take on the Education Department鈥檚 , , and a that help K-12 schools with desegregation efforts.
Department officials have teased many of these moves for more than a year. The conservative policy agenda Project 2025, which has guided many Trump administration actions, recommended moving both special education and civil rights enforcement to their respective new agencies.
Tuesday鈥檚 announcement marks the latest step by the second Trump administration toward its goal of eliminating the Education Department. As part of 10 previously announced interagency agreements, more than 100 K-12 and higher education programs are already relocating to five agencies鈥擨nterior, Labor, State, Treasury, and HHS.
Civil rights office changes won鈥檛 affect students, officials say
The Education Department鈥檚 office for civil rights will move to the Justice Department鈥檚 civil rights division, currently led by Trump appointee Harmeet Dhillon, who has .
During a call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, senior Education Department officials said the agency hasn鈥檛 yet determined whether current Department of Justice staffers will work on Education Department civil right cases.
鈥淗ow to identify staffing needs, how to allocate resources, how to allocate the workload to ensure that students, parents, and families still have relief through OCR, is something that we will continue to work closely and strategically with DOJ to solve over the coming weeks,鈥� one official said.
The Education Department鈥檚 civil rights office will refer cases to the Department of Justice for evaluation and resolution but will continue to decide whether to pursue administrative enforcement action, the official said. Current OCR staff will still serve as the points of contact for families involved in ongoing investigations, the official said.
Moving the civil rights office, the official said, 鈥渨ill not affect students, parents, and families.鈥�
But Jill Siegelbaum, a partner at Sligo Law Group who previously worked as an Education Department attorney, said she believes the OCR move is illegal, and likely to make it harder for students and families to secure relief from discrimination. DOJ lawyers may lack the expertise to interpret nuances of education law that affect investigation outcomes, she said.
鈥淭he Department [of Education] is prioritizing campaign slogans over student outcomes, taking core Departmental functions away from the experts and wedging them into agencies that lack sufficient expertise or resources,鈥� Siegelbaum wrote in an email on Tuesday afternoon.
During Trump鈥檚 second administration, the Education Department has closed more than half of OCR鈥檚 regional offices and attempted to lay off more than half its staff, only to be thwarted by courts and forced to keep more than 200 OCR staffers on paid administrative leave for much of last year.
OCR has also taken on new enforcement priorities, investigating dozens of school districts, colleges, state education departments, and athletic associations for alleged violations of Trump executive orders attempting to bar schools from letting transgender athletes join girls鈥� sports teams and eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
More recently, the Justice Department has initiated investigations of its own into dozens of school districts for similar reasons.
Only Congress can formally close a cabinet agency
Closing the Education Department altogether requires an act of Congress. But the administration has been moving aggressively toward that goal on its own since taking office in January 2025.
On top of efforts to offload programs to other agencies, the department has also reduced its staff by nearly half, canceled more than $2 billion in previously awarded grants, and proposed dramatic budget cuts for future years.
A federal judge in May 2025 halted the administration鈥檚 ongoing efforts to shrink the department in response to two lawsuits challenging the staff reductions. But the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that ruling two months later, allowing the department to proceed with downsizing while the litigation proceeds.
The Education Department鈥檚 staff union decried Tuesday鈥檚 newly announced program moves. Previous agreements, the union said in a statement, 鈥渉ave led to massive delays in Congressionally mandated funding and confusion for federal employees and the public alike.鈥�
In an that accompanied the fiscal 2026 budget Congress approved in February, lawmakers from both parties cast doubt on the value and legality of interagency agreements like the ones the Education Department has used to move day-to-day management of its programs to other agencies.
Appropriators wrote they were 鈥渃oncerned that fragmenting responsibilities for education programs across multiple agencies will create inefficiencies, result in additional costs to the American taxpayer, and cause delays and administrative challenges in Federal funding reaching States, school districts, and schools.鈥�
But Republican lawmakers to explicitly prohibit those agreements.
The fiscal 2027 education budget bill House Republicans are currently advancing includes no mention of the interagency agreements.
During a , U.S. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., called on the chair of the Senate education committee鈥擲en. Bill Cassidy, R-La.鈥攖o compel Education Secretary Linda McMahon to testify publicly on the changes. A spokesperson for Cassidy didn鈥檛 answer a request for comment in time for publication.
Placing special ed. in HHS worries advocates for students with disabilities
The Department of Education鈥檚 office of special education programs and its Rehabilitation Services Administration, which funds services to help adults with disabilities transition to the workforce, will move to the Administration on Disabilities, a sub-agency of HHS.
The AOD is currently led by Rebecca Hines, a former associate professor of special education at the University of Central Florida. Hines鈥� sister, Cheryl Hines, is married to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Hines鈥� second-in-command at AOD is Principal Deputy Commissioner Diana Diaz-Harrison, who after serving as Trump鈥檚 appointee overseeing special education and RSA in the Education Department. Diaz-Harrison previously founded a system of Arizona charter schools for students with autism; HHS in February .
Advocates for students with disabilities have been decrying the prospect of the HHS move ever since McMahon floated it during her Senate confirmation hearing in February 2025.
They worry that funding鈥攕tarting with billions of dollars Congress approved in February for the upcoming school year鈥攚ill be disrupted, and that enforcement against schools depriving students of needed services will dwindle.
They鈥檝e also criticized the decision to move disability support programs for students to an agency that isn鈥檛 centered on education.
鈥淚DEA is fundamentally an education law鈥攏ot a healthcare law鈥攁nd should continue to be administered by education policy experts who understand schools, teaching, learning, and accountability,鈥� Phyllis Wolfram, executive director for the Council of Special Education Administrators (CASE), wrote in a statement on Tuesday.
McMahon has countered that the administration believes removing the Education Department from the equation will help special education funding flow more easily to states, schools, and students. Federal law still requires schools to provide K-12 students with disabilities a free and appropriate education regardless of cost.
In a to advocates obtained by Education Week, two of the department鈥檚 political appointees said the federal government will continue to enforce special education law and support students鈥� pursuit of academic and career opportunities.
鈥淲e will scale back micromanagement where it hinders success, but the Department is committed to bolstering efficacy of federal oversight where it is essential,鈥� wrote Kim Richey and Kelly Rogers, who were appointed by President Donald Trump to oversee special education and rehabilitative services, respectively.
The special education move, while not inherently catastrophic, threatens to place federal staffers in a workplace culture that clashes with their current focus on disability services, said Larry Wexler, who served as a division director in the Education Department鈥檚 office of special education programs from 2006 until late 2024.
HHS, for instance, doesn鈥檛 have relationships with school districts like the Education Department does. The agency is 鈥渋nherently a model that is incompatible with education because it鈥檚 a medical model,鈥� Wexler said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just not the same mentality.鈥�
In a Fox News , McMahon dismissed concerns a medical model will be applied to special education programs. 鈥淚DEA, as an education law, ensures that a child鈥檚 disability isn鈥檛 viewed as a medical condition that needs to be treated,鈥� she wrote.
Close observers of disability policy had expected the Trump administration to choose the Department of Labor as the new home for the Rehabilitation Services Administration, which sits within the Education Department鈥檚 broader special education office. Many similar state-level programs operate out of state departments of labor.
Trump has repeatedly pitched major special education changes
Ever since 1975, when Congress signed what鈥檚 now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act into law, the federal government has operated two special education offices鈥攐ne that supplies funding for direct services to students, and another for discretionary grants that fuel special education research, training, technology development, parent assistance, and data collection.
The special education offices originated in the iteration of HHS that was known as the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The education portion of that agency splintered off in 1979, when Congress established the Department of Education as a standalone agency.
Those two Education Department offices currently administer $15 billion for special education each year. Trump鈥檚 two budget proposals so far both pitched eliminating competitive special education grants that the federal government has offered since the law鈥檚 inception.
Under Trump鈥檚 budget proposals, funding for those grants鈥攆or priorities like data collection, research, teacher training, and technology development鈥攚ould shift to the Part B formula funding states by law must distribute to schools.
During last year鈥檚 budget negotiations, Congress ultimately rejected that proposal, which would require a lengthy process of reauthorizing IDEA for the first time in more than two decades.
While waiting for Congress to weigh in last year, though, the department under Trump and McMahon in September abruptly canceled more than $30 million in competitive IDEA grants that were awarded during previous administrations, as part of a broader and unprecedented crackdown on ongoing federally funded projects.
