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Sarah K. Howorth of Orono and Lisa K. Neuman of Greenfield Township are both parents of young adults with disabilities and associate professors. Connor Archer of Milford is the founder and CEO of Courageous Steps Project; Carrie Woodcock is the director of the Maine Parent Federation. They, along with Stacy Turner of Camden, Danielle Pelletier of Bangor, Michael Grillo of Blue Hill Sarah Wilkinson of Old Orchard Beach, Jessica Apgar, Kathryn Sheridan Stiefel, and Kate MacLeod of Farmington, Gretchen Scheibel of Topsham, Lincoln Tiner of Old Town, Marnie Morneault of New Gloucester, Valerie Smith of Winthrop, Shay Wilcox of Portland and William Nichol of Bangor, are signatories to this commentary.
In 1975, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which guarantees every child, regardless of disability, has the right to a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. Before that law, over 1.7 million children with disabilities were excluded from school. IDEA opened those doors, and for 50 years, it has stood as a promise that every child deserves to learn, belong, and thrive.
Today, that promise, which now serves nearly 8 million students nationally, is in danger.
In October, nearly all staff at the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), federal agencies implementing and enforcing IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act, were fired. These experts have dedicated their lives to ensuring that students with disabilities have access to education, employment, and community participation.
OSEP ensures that students from infants to high schoolers with disabilities receive education, related support, and monitors states’ compliance with IDEA. Without OSEP, these services will likely disappear, jeopardizing early-intervention programs, inclusive classrooms, and teacher preparation efforts.
These programs are not charity; they are civil rights. Their dismantling undermines our economy. A 1% increase in the employment of individuals with disabilities adds nearly $25 billion to the U.S. GDP each year, making it clear that inclusion benefits us all by reducing reliance on government benefits.
We strongly believe suggestions to move IDEA from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are absurd. In schools, children with disabilities are not educated in the nurses’ offices. IDEA is an education law, not a health law, rooted in pedagogy, curriculum, and accountability for learning, not medical treatment.
Shifting IDEA to HHS would reframe disability as a medical issue rather than an educational one, rolling back 50 years of progress toward inclusion, Re-segregating students with disabilities, undoing decades of work by educators, families, and advocates who fought for integration. Removing OSEP’s oversight, while expecting IDEA to function, is like grounding the air-traffic-control towers but expecting the planes to fly safely. The traffic doesn’t slow; it simply becomes more dangerous without monitoring and communication. Based on our collective professional and personal experiences, we recommend that Congress maintain IDEA under the direction of the Department of Education.
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which enforces laws like Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability and Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, has also been gutted — nearly all staff laid off and seven of 12 regional enforcement offices, including Boston, closed. Without OCR, families lose recourse when schools fail to provide accessible classrooms, when students with disabilities are disciplined for disability-related behavior, or when girls face harassment or exclusion. Because of these cuts, unresolved complaints now sit untouched, and schools are left without guidance or accountability. As one Maine parent told us recently, “If my son’s rights are violated now, who do I call?” That question should haunt all of us.
In Maine, these cuts mean fewer supports for children and adults who need related services, fewer job placements for young adults with disabilities, less funding for qualified teachers, and less oversight of discrimination complaints in our schools.
“These crucial supports will have a detrimental impact on the work that needs to happen in Maine and across the country to ensure we are building a future workforce that supports our children with various abilities and challenges who need our support the most,” says Courageous Steps Project founder and chairman/CEO Connor Archer, someone who lives with autism and received special education services in school. “The oversight is necessary to ensure that all children have equitable access to their education and related services.”
Maine schools already face severe shortages. Many rural districts struggle to recruit and retain certified teachers. When federal leadership and funding collapse, local districts are left to pick up the pieces with insufficient resources.
We cannot be silent. IDEA turned 50 this year, and deserves recommitment from Congress to:
Fully fund IDEA and restore OSEP and RSA capacity to ensure that every state has the resources to uphold the law. Rehire federal civil rights and rehabilitation staff and reestablish the oversight that keeps Maine schools accountable. Invest in teacher preparation and professional learning, so every educator is equipped to support all learners.
Supporting students with disabilities isn’t political. It’s about ensuring that our neighbors’ children, and our own, are not forgotten in the classrooms and workplaces of tomorrow as they were in Willowbrook.
