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School's Out Forever And Disabled Children Will Be Harmed The Most

School's Out Forever And Disabled Children Will Be Harmed The Most

Trump is pushing forward with the Project 2025 directive to end the Department of Education

March 06, 2025

The Trump Regime plans to issue an executive order that would aim to dissolve the Department of Education.

A draft email, first reported by Marisa Kabas, from Education Secretary Linda McMahon tells the DoE, “We are to identify which of the Department’s functions, programs, and offices are not mandated by statute, and eliminate them.”

After President Trump's inauguration last month, he has steadily signed a slate of executive orders to keep these education promises: combatting critical race theory, DEl, gender ideology extremism, and discrimination in admissions. President Trump has also been focused on eliminating wasteful bureaucracy and harmful programs in the federal government. To that end, today he signed [Executive Order XYZ, entitled "Eliminating the Department of Education,] which has given us a clear and final mission. We are to identify which of the Department's functions, programs, and offices are not mandated by statute, and eliminate them. This reorganization will impact staff, budgets, reporting, and more —and in coming months, we will determine how it can be accomplished with minimal delay and disruption. The President further tasked us with creating a plan to reallocate and reassign functions of the Department of Education that would be more effectively managed by other agencies. This plan will offer Congress a road map toward fulfilling the expectations of the President and the American people. The new vision—which I hope each of you will embrace going forward—can be expressed as four main convictions: Parents are the primary decision makers in their children's education. Students deserve to be protected from physical violence, racial discrimination, medical tyranny, and gender extremism ideology on campus. Postsecondary education should be a path to a well-paying career aligned with workforce needs. Taxpayer-funded education should refocus on meaningful learning: proficiency in math, reading, and core subjects, and patriotism in American history and civics. As we move to reduce the Department's middleman role in education, these four convictions must guide us toward conscientious and pragmatic action. The elimination of bureaucracy should free us, not limit us, in our pursuit of these goals Removing red tape and bureaucratic barriers will empower parents to make th

The upcoming executive order itself is even more vindictive:

"The experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars - - and the unaccountable bureaucrats those programs and dollars support - - has failed our children, our teachers, and our families."

This blatantly ignores the immense amount of relief the Department of Education directly provides to struggling families in rural areas, especially those who have children with special needs.

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) lists their purpose as “dedicated to improving results for infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities ages birth through 21 by providing leadership and financial support to assist states and local districts.” The OSEP is a direct DoE initiative and would end if the DoE were eliminated.

Experts have already chimed in and raised alarms about the massive damage that would befall disabled youth if the DoE were shuttered:

“We have deep concern as we see or hear nothing that assures us the administration understands and intends to carry out its obligation to protect our kids or understands that (the Education Department) has an obligation to assure our kids get the services and supports they are entitled to under the law,” said Denise S. Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, or COPAA, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of students with disabilities and their families.

While federal laws including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act guarantee students with disabilities certain rights in schools, the Education Department plays a major role in ensuring that these laws are implemented.

“The interplay of the federal laws that serve and protect our children is complex, there must be expert personnel who work to carry out the statute’s requirements,” Marshall said. “IDEA delegates distinct duties to the secretary of education and the law obligates the department to provide oversight, technical assistance and more so that states can fulfill their obligation to provide a free, appropriate public education to every student with a disability.”

Last November, during a hearing on special education, the conversation morphed into a discussion on this very issue. One of the panelists remarked that losing the DoE would put the onus on states to ensure children with disabilities got the attention they needed, could have their civil rights violated, and cuts for budgets could discourage some teachers from taking on the extra responsibility:

Tuan Nguyen, an associate professor at the University of Missouri who studies teacher labor markets, said he worried that without a federal Education Department putting pressure on states to require certain standards for teaching, who ends up working with students with disabilities would be a “free-for-all.”

“Years of evidence have shown that when states don’t have a mandate to make sure that our teachers are licensed and qualified, they’ll put anybody they can in the classroom,” Nguyen said.

Amanda Levin Mazin, a senior lecturer at Columbia University’s Teachers College, said she worried that without an Education Department, there would be cuts to incentives that help people enter the special education teaching profession. The Education Department has the discretion to award a variety of grants to school districts, universities, and others to support teacher recruitment and pipeline development.

Jessica Levin, the litigation director of the Education Law Center, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of students with disabilities, said she worried that eliminating the department would hurt the enforcement of students’ civil rights. Historically, most federal civil rights complaints in education are related to a student’s disability.

“The Department of Education and the experts within it play a crucial role in enforcing those civil rights for students with disabilities across the country,” she said. “This is an incredibly dangerous proposal, both on a practical and symbolic level.”

Project 2025’s overall goal is to eliminate the pillars of Liberalism throughout the U.S. and eventually the rest of the Western world. Abandoning the most vulnerable among us is simply the next step in making that dystopian vision a reality.