{"id":593,"date":"2026-07-22T22:42:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T22:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=593"},"modified":"2026-07-22T22:42:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T22:42:21","slug":"former-education-officials-warn-agency-transfers-could-undermine-core-functions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=593","title":{"rendered":"Former Education officials warn agency transfers could undermine core functions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Former Education Department officials in Republican and Democratic administrations sounded the alarm Monday over the agency\u2019s efforts to outsource its special education programs and civil rights enforcement to other agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Unions ask for injunction restoring collective bargaining at Defense<\/a><\/p>\n

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., convened the former officials, along with advocates and educators, at a virtual press conference to blast those sweeping moves, which are part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump\u2019s administration to dismantle the 46-year-old Education Department.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Murray rebuked the\u00a0transfers\u00a0as \u201coutrageous\u201d and \u201ccompletely unacceptable,\u201d noting that while she is fighting \u201ctooth and nail\u201d against any effort to dismantle the agency, she is \u201cespecially concerned about what this could mean for all students, especially students with disabilities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The agency in June said the Department of Health and Human Services will administer programs under Education\u2019s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, or OSERS, while civil rights enforcement under its Office for Civil Rights will be transferred to the Department of Justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Education Department had announced\u00a010 earlier\u00a0interagency agreements, or IAAs, with HHS, Labor, Interior, State and\u00a0Treasury, which transfer several of Education\u2019s responsibilities to those agencies.<\/p>\n

The department has said it \u201cwill continue to perform all statutorily required duties and responsibilities\u201d involving special education programs and civil rights enforcement.<\/p>\n

OSERS is responsible for administering the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, which guarantees a free public education for students with disabilities. The umbrella unit OSERS includes the Office of the Assistant Secretary, Office of Special Education Programs and the Rehabilitation Services Administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The civil rights office is tasked with investigating complaints from students and families.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Learners, not patients”<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc of the United States, an advocacy group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, said that the transfers \u201cwould split apart the offices responsible for making disability rights real in schools, leaving families chasing answers across the federal government instead of getting accountability from one education agency.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Neas was the deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary at OSERS during the Biden administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stakes have never been higher,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we allow the Department of Education to be dismantled, we not only undo decades of progress, we also risk abandoning the promise that every child deserves a chance to try and to succeed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Catherine Lhamon, executive director of the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law said the \u201cnew interagency agreement between the Department of Education and the Department of Justice is what someone would create if the person were designing a system to fail.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Inspector general group would be axed under new House GOP bill<\/a><\/p>\n

Lhamon\u00a0served as assistant secretary for civil rights during the Obama and Biden administrations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe principal harm of this new agreement is that it guarantees lengthier continued silence from the federal government on the classic kinds of discrimination cases families experience,\u201d Lhamon said. Examples include restraining or secluding students, she said.<\/p>\n

It raises \u201cthe core question (of) whether students with disabilities have the free appropriate public education to which the law entitles them,\u201d Lhamon added.<\/p>\n

Stephanie Smith Lee, co-director of policy and advocacy at National Down Syndrome Congress, pointed out that \u201cIDEA is an education and civil rights law, not a healthcare program.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents with disabilities are learners, not patients,\u201d added Lee, who served as director of the Office of Special Education Programs under the George W. Bush administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMoving special education and vocational rehabilitation to the Department of Health and Human Services would separate them from the rest of federal education policy and weaken the expertise and coordinated oversight that students, families and states depend on,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Savannah Newhouse, a spokesperson for the Education Department, dismissed the criticism, saying in a statement to States Newsroom that Murray and the former officials were part of a failing status quo.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Senator Murray is well aware, the Department of Education\u2019s interagency partnerships do not alter the Trump Administration’s dedication to students with disabilities and federal civil rights laws,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThese agreements simply ensure that well-positioned agencies can support the workload, pool their expertise, and ultimately strengthen protections for students.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

House bills “dead”\u00a0in Senate\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Meanwhile, earlier in July the\u00a0House Committee on Education and Workforce\u00a0advanced a package of 10 bills permanently transferring several of Education\u2019s functions to other departments and largely reflecting many of the earlier IAAs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Notably, that package does not include any efforts to transfer Education\u2019s responsibilities regarding special education programs and civil rights enforcement to other agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as this former preschool teacher is a United States senator, every one of those bills is dead on arrival,\u201d Murray said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Despite firings, acting IG says it\u2019s \u2018the best time to be in the inspector general community\u2019 due to focus on fraud<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Officials from Republican and Democratic administrations said moving key responsibilities outside the department could create confusion and erode oversight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management"],"yoast_head":"\nFormer Education officials warn agency transfers could undermine core functions - Market Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=593\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Former Education officials warn agency transfers could undermine core functions - 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