Dept of Ed cuts education for Children With Disabilities

TAKE ACTION to Protect Children With Disabilities!

Last weekend the Administration announced the firing of hundreds of Department of Education federal staff who provide critical educational access support for children with disabilities. This means fewer protections when students with disabilities face exclusion, harassment, discriminatory discipline, and barriers to access and inclusion in education. These employees were responsible for administering funding and overseeing the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which serves more than 8 million children nationwide.

Harrowing moves like this are not happening in isolation, they are yet another egregious example of the ceaseless attacks on children with disabilities–from assaults to Medicaid, dangerous false rhetoric around autism, and the proposal of registries for tracking children with developmental differences, indicating a pattern of measures aimed at stripping away the humanity of children with disabilities.

Description of Image

Tell Congress they MUST put pressure on the Trump administration to reinstate staff at the Department of Education!

Dear member of Congress,

Last weekend the Administration announced the firing of hundreds of Department of Education federal staff who provide critical educational access support for children with disabilities. This means fewer protections when students with disabilities face exclusion, harassment, discriminatory discipline, and barriers to access and inclusion in education. Without federal oversight, states could begin ignoring or weakening disability rights laws altogether.

The Education Department already severed nearly half of its staff this past March and now have laid off just about every employee responsible for administering funding and overseeing the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which serves more than 8 million children nationwide.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has provided access to free, quality education to children with disabilities, early intervention support for infants, toddlers, and their families, and ensured access to special education & critical supportive services since 1975. Prior to the protections enacted by this landmark legislation, U.S. public schools accommodated just 1 out of 5 children with disabilities and many states even had laws excluding students with disabilities! 3.5 million disabled children who attended school were forced into segregated facilities that provided little or no effective instruction and 1.8 million children with disabilities had no access to the public school system at all.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the IDEA yet instead of celebrating progress, our nation is facing the dismantling of the very infrastructure created to protect children with disabilities, pushing millions of children back to a time of segregation and systemic refusal to provide educational opportunities.

Congress has a long bipartisan history of funding federal efforts to ensure children with disabilities can equally access education, this is why it is crucial that elected officials such as yourself help fulfill this essential congressional role of funding & overseeing these programs—and hold the Department of Education accountable. The Department of Education is meant to be the keeper of IDEA’s promise, not the architect of its demise.

We urge you to put pressure on the Trump administration to reinstate staff and transparency at the Department of Education and help right this egregious wrong and protect children with disabilities throughout the nation who depend on these critical programs to learn, grow and thrive.

Sincerely,

Contact Information

Name*

Email address*

ZIP Code*

Get text message alerts (Standard text message charges may apply)

Mobile Phone*

Privacy Policy (the basics): We do not share the information you've given us with unaffiliated groups without your explicit permission. For petitions, letters to the editor, and surveys you've signed or completed, we treat your name, city, state, and comments as public information. We will not make your street address publicly available, but we may transmit it to members of Congress, the President, or other targets specifically noted on the signup page. We will send you updates on this and other important campaigns by email. If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from our email list, you may do so. For our complete privacy policy, click here.