Maryland Special Education Fears With Education Cuts

Some of the first questions that arose after President-Elect Donald Trump made his intentions clear—to reduce Washington’s influence in schools and shift control to the states—centered on significant concerns about special education funding, Title I funding for low-income students, and the enforcement of civil rights protections in schools. These are all areas currently overseen by the Department of Education, a department the president-elect has suggested eliminating. However, this decision is not entirely in his hands. For the Department of Education to be dismantled, Congress would have to repeal the law that created it back in 1979.

“I think that there’s a lot of fear-mongering about what it would mean,” Tim Villegas, a spokesperson for the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education, told us. “In the short term, if the Department of Education is dismantled, all of that funding would probably just go somewhere else and be administered somewhere else in the federal government.”

For instance, the department’s Office of Civil Rights, which enforces protections such as Title IX against sex discrimination in schools, might be absorbed into the Department of Justice.

Villegas’ organization, however, is primarily focused on ensuring that students with special needs continue to be protected under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a key law providing federal funding for the education of children with disabilities.

“Congress still has to appropriate those funds, and IDEA has never been funded at the 40% that it was promised. It’s only ever reached 14 or 15% at the most. Our fear, if we do have any, is that it’s possible those funds could be zeroed out. But there’s no indication that this administration would actually do that.”

Dr. Jade Wexler from the University of Maryland clarifies how crucial education laws like IDEA and Title I under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) are independent of the Department of Education.

“They’re separate laws that were created by Congress that are not eliminated even if the Department of Education is eliminated, as long as Congress continues to appropriate money for these different programs.”

These laws actually predate the creation of the Department of Education, which was established in 1979. Before that, there was the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). Dr. Philip Burke, a professor of special education in Maryland, previously worked within HEW and recalls how education was handled by the federal government before the Department of Education’s creation.

“Frankly, it got very little attention. The ‘e’ in HEW was a very tiny ‘e,’ not capitalized at all. It was a very small part of a big agency which controls Social Security, eventually Medicare […] When it got moved into the Department of Education, it gave much more visibility, which is a good thing.”

Even with the establishment of the Department of Education, the federal government typically only provides about 10% of a state’s school funding.

“Even if all federal funding—poof, just went away—there will still be funds available for learners with disabilities, assuming that they would honor the federal guidelines in the law,” Villegas from the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education emphasized.

However, some experts are concerned about the potential loss of oversight provided by the federal government. The Department of Education plays a critical role in ensuring states comply with laws like IDEA, which was initially created because states had historically failed to serve students with disabilities adequately.

If the department were eliminated, “They [the states] don’t have any or they have minimal accountability. So then there’s uneven accountability across the states,” Dr. Wexler warned.

“If left to other agencies or states, they do not have experience in doing the work of making sure that our girls can participate in sports, that our students have equal access and equitable access to the programs they need. We don’t want those important Title IX and Title I protections to be handed off or to go away,” said Paul Lemle, president of the Maryland State Education Association, which is the state’s largest teachers union.

Lemle also raised concerns that any perceived threat to public education could damage efforts to recruit more teachers. He noted there are approximately 120,000 job openings in public education right now.

“When we’re talking about kicking our programs and our schools around like political footballs, we really undermine confidence in our public schools,” Lemle said. “We want people to know what a great job it is. The attacks make it much harder.”

Experts also point out that laws like IDEA and ESEA have historically had strong bipartisan support, which may provide some reassurance to educators and families.

“Anything can happen, but it’s unlikely they would want to reduce the amount of money going into that,” Dr. Wexler said, speaking to the continued support for these educational programs.

“We love our jobs; we love our kids. We think that sentiment is shared across the aisle,” Lemle added.

Despite these reassurances, Dr. Burke believes that eliminating the Department of Education would be a “huge mistake.”

“If you really look at what goes on around the world, every country has figured out that education represents its future. In other words, the ability of its workforce to be well-educated, to actually be able to participate in government, to be successful economically—they really see education as a major investment. I think that one of the tools they use to be able to have a role in that is to have a major federal agency as part of government,” Dr. Burke shared with WMAR-2 News. “All major industrial countries have the equivalent of a Department of Education. It may not be called that, but basically there’s a central role for education in the central government, which, I think, is really critical for the success of a nation, to be honest with you.”

Another important aspect of this discussion revolves around the curriculum and the role of federal influence in schools. The Department of Education does not control what schools teach. It is, in fact, illegal for the department to directly determine the curriculum under the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The law stipulates that the responsibility for curriculum decisions lies with individual states and local school boards.

Even with initiatives like the Common Core, the decision to adopt these standards was made independently by each state. While the Obama administration incentivized their adoption by offering grants to states that implemented Common Core, there was no direct control over curriculum. The federal government’s influence on education remains indirect, and states have the autonomy to determine how they implement education standards.

The Maryland State Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment regarding the potential changes and their impact on state-level education policies.

The Maryland Association of Boards of Education, however, issued the following statement:

“We have been following public education headlines closely while focusing on our core work of supporting local school boards in their efforts to champion excellence in Maryland public education. As you may already know, we provide this support of school boards and of local school board governance through professional development, advocacy, and member services. That said, we will continue to monitor this and other public education-related issues moving forward in efforts to help keep local MD school boards well informed and are eager to learn more specific details in the days and months ahead.”

In summary, while the Department of Education’s future is uncertain, the core educational laws that protect students, especially those with disabilities, and ensure equal access to educational resources, remain largely intact regardless of the department’s existence. The ongoing conversations, spearheaded by experts in education, suggest a careful balance between state control and federal oversight will continue to be vital to ensuring that educational equity and protections remain in place across the nation.