Trump Pitches Moving Special Education To Shrinking HHS | EUROtoday

The Trump administration has tried to downplay the results of probably dismantling the Department of Education by saying essential applications for youths with disabilities can be moved to the Department of Health and Human Services. But HHS is within the midst of its personal widespread layoffs, with 1000’s of staff shedding their jobs and important applications being minimize, and advocates fear what may occur if a vital schooling program is moved from one company in turmoil to a different.

When President Donald Trump signed an government order with the purpose of dismantling the Department of Education final month, he advised reporters {that a} key perform of the company — making certain youngsters with disabilities obtain equal entry to a top quality schooling — can be “immediately” moved to HHS.

The Education Department is accountable for serving the greater than 7 million youngsters with disabilities who attend public college within the U.S., together with by offering them with individualized schooling plans, speech therapists and particular schooling lecturers.

The president has supplied no extra particulars about how this transfer might occur, however each Education Secretary Linda McMahon and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have expressed their help for the proposal. It’s unclear if the administration envisions employees from the Education Department transferring to HHS to manage this system or present HHS staff taking it over. Just weeks earlier than Trump signed the order, he laid off practically half of the staff on the Education Department, together with some who labored in particular education schemes.

Neither division responded to HuffPost’s request for remark.

Administration officers have pointed to the truth that applications for college students with disabilities have been dealt with by HHS earlier than. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which is the legislation that created and regulates particular schooling providers, was handed in 1975 — earlier than the Education Department even existed.

Trump can’t transfer applications from one company to a different with out congressional approval. The legislation requires oversight of IDEA to be finished on the Department of Education, and Congress must amend current legislation or create a wholly new one in an effort to shuffle applications round. Dismantling the division totally would additionally require an act of Congress.

“But there’s still a difference between something being legal versus it being the right thing to do,” mentioned Robyn Linscott, the director of schooling and household coverage on the Arc, a incapacity equality nonprofit group. “And advocates are united in saying this isn’t the right thing for students with disabilities.”

And even because the administration gives assurances that the applications that serve weak college students can be fantastic, they’re additionally inflicting widespread chaos and uncertainty on the division that’s supposedly going to take over key applications.

As HHS staff arrived to work on Tuesday, lots of them discovered that the badges they usually use to entry their constructing now not labored as a result of that they had been a part of the most recent spherical of mass layoffs to hit the federal authorities since Trump returned to energy in January. Among the applications focused for cuts is one which serves adults with disabilities.

“The recent mass layoffs at HHS affecting employees at the CDC, FDA, and other federal health agencies are dangerous, irresponsible, and unacceptable,” Everett Kelley, the American Federation of Government Employees president, which represents 820,000 federal staff, mentioned in a press release. “Cutting 10,000 critical public health jobs puts every American at risk – weakening our defenses against disease outbreaks, unsafe medications, and contaminated food.”

Even earlier than the large cuts at HHS, advocates mentioned the company didn’t have the sources to successfully oversee particular schooling. “HHS is not equipped to do this,” Linscott mentioned.

Without the experience of the Department of Education, it’s unclear if disabled college students would start to fall by way of the cracks and even be educated in any respect, like they incessantly did previous to the passage of the IDEA.

“Special education is a service, not a place,” Linscott mentioned. “We want our students to be supported by an agency that looks at them as a whole person.”

Trump’s announcement that HHS would deal with particular schooling — after which the shortage of follow-up clarification — embodies the havoc that his administration is wreaking on the federal authorities and the individuals who depend on it.

“Those of us who work in this space are confused about what this announcement means,” Linscott mentioned. “I can’t imagine how parents who have full-time jobs and are caring for their kids with disabilities are dealing with this.”