Navigating Special Education Funding Amid Federal Changes

This year marks half a century since the landmark federal law advocating for and protecting students with disabilities was enacted in 1975. 

Initially called the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) in 1990, those in the special education field have celebrated the law this year. But they also worry about its future.

“As we mark the 50th anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, we are called not only to honor its legacy but to reimagine what comes next,” noted the Council for Exceptional Children, a research and advocacy organization.

And that’s the big question. Many special educators and administrators are nervously watching the debate around the 2026 federal budget and its impact on IDEA and other legislation that affects students with disabilities. This includes the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. 

Special education has always been a particularly complicated topic for journalists to cover, with its many rules, requirements and specialized jargon, and it is even tougher now, with significant cuts and changes in funding proposed by the Trump administration.

For journalists, the challenge is translating what changes to these complex laws mean to students, families, teachers and schools. Will there be fewer teachers? More difficulty using and providing the technology that can assist those with disabilities. Fewer state and national organizations that provide resources and support?

The potential changes could affect almost every part of special education as it exists now, including teacher availability, parental support centers, and technical assistance centers, which provide research-based guidance and resources on interventions, technology and other areas. 

“The stakes for students with disabilities are high,” wrote Tammy Kolbe, a research associate professor at the University of Vermont, and Elizabeth Dhuey, a professor of economics at the University of Toronto, in a commentary for the Brookings Institution. “The future of special education will likely depend on how Congress navigates these tradeoffs – balancing a desire for flexibility and innovation with the needs to maintain funding stability, ensure equity and uphold the rights of students with disabilities.”

Research Who IDEA Serves and Special Education Funding

Before IDEA passed, U.S. public schools were not mandated to enroll students with disabilities. One of the key principles of the law is that students ages 3-21 must be given access to a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive setting. That means, if possible, students with disabilities should be taught in a general education classroom with support as needed.

About 15% of public school students, or more than 7.5 million, receive special education and related services; the numbers, which have doubled since the law passed, continue to rise almost every year.

There are a few reasons for this increase, according to Education Week. These include better diagnoses of autism and ADHD – among other conditions – and decreased stigma, so more parents will seek help for their children. Additionally, general education’s rigor and inflexibility may have lessened its effectiveness in addressing the needs of students who lag behind either academically or socially and emotionally.

IDEA also serves about half a million infants and toddlers. For those under age 3, the law covers children who are experiencing delays cognitively, physically or in other areas. Students ages 3-21 must fall into one of 13 categories, including autism, emotional disturbance and speech or language impairments. The most common category is a learning disability in reading, writing or doing math. 

Initially, IDEA mandated that the federal government supply 40% of the average amount a school or district spends on each pupil for legally required special education services – but with no funding attached, which are known as unfunded mandates, said Laurie VanderPloeg, the associate executive director of professional affairs for the Council for Exceptional Children. 

But the government has never come near to funding the full 40%, largely due to political obstacles and competing demands. Legislation requiring full funding of IDEA has been introduced numerous times in Congress but never passed. 

“Right now, we’re teetering at 12% to 13% – that’s all the government is currently giving us [special education] under our IDEA funds, which means it’s a huge burden on states to pick up those excess mandated costs of special education services,” reducing their overall general education budget, VanderPloeg added.

Understand the Pros and Cons of Trump’s ‘Simplified Funding’ Plan for Special Education

The budget Trump has proposed keeps the funding level for IDEA at $15.5 billion, which special education advocates say is a relief. But the way that funding would be distributed differs from previous years.

IDEA is divided into four sections:

• Part A lays out the law.
• Part B covers federal grants to states to ensure preschool and school-age students are given a free and appropriate education. It receives the most funding, which was more than $14.2 billion in 2024. 
• Part C addresses early intervention for infants and toddlers ages birth through 2. 
• Part D covers what are called “national activities,” which include accessible instructional material, parent information centers, educational technology, technical assistance and teacher preparation. They were previously funded at $263.6 million.

Under Trump’s plan, Part C remains the same at $540 million. But funding for Part D would drop to zero; that money would be moved to Part B. That is the change that worries many special education advocates the most, along with the decision to no longer separate preschool grants from school-age grants in Part B.

The Trump administration’s changes are called the Special Education Simplified Funding Program; the goal is to limit the federal footprint and remove the administrative burden on states “so more dollars go to students rather than bureaucrats.”

Some states “would love more flexibility around those grant programs,” said Kara Arundel, a senior reporter at K-12 Dive. For example, she said, “States would have that little extra funding to decide, ‘Hey, we don’t really need to put money into teacher prep because we’ve been ramping that up for years. What we really need to do is look at our transportation dollars and help districts better fund transporting students with disabilities’.”

A number of education leaders from Republican-led states have made known their desire for more state control over federal education funds, and the proposed consolidation of grants would be a step in that direction. In an op-ed published by The Hill, Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-Iowa) advocated for consolidated general education funding, an argument that is echoed by other Republicans in concerns about special education funding:

“Prescriptive requirements prevent states from scaling innovative programs,” Reynolds wrote and that “splitting the dollars into so many different funding streams… results in small-dollar investments that fail to move the needle for students or teachers.”

But such block funding worries many advocates.

“The national collaboration and shared expertise that flow through Part D programs would be lost,” wrote Jacqueline Rodriguez, CEO of the nonprofit National Center for Learning Disabilities, and Ayan Kishore, CEO of Benetech, which promotes accessibility through technological innovation. “If those supports were left to states alone, the system would splinter.”

In addition, “Many states do not have the personnel or the bandwidth or the financial resources to take on the increased responsibility,” VanderPloeg said.

She listed questions reporters should ask about these funding changes: “Where will be the oversight and the accountability? Are there some non-negotiables that need to be taken into consideration? Or are we opening it up and allowing states to make that determination?”

No one would argue that IDEA and the way it is implemented and enforced is perfect. 

Almost all states – 43 out of 50 – are out of compliance with IDEA, said Meghan Burke, a professor of special education at Vanderbilt University. That means they haven’t met one or more of the law’s requirements; for example, most schools, unless their state specifies a different timeline, have 60 days from when the school received parental permission to conduct an evaluation and provide special education services if the student is deemed eligible, Burke said. Many states don’t meet that timeline.

“I think that underscores that change needs to be had,” she said. “Clearly something needs to be done differently, but I don’t think removing federal oversight and federal funding of certain things is going to help.”

The key provisions of IDEA – such as individualized education plans (IEPs), which are legally binding documents created for students with disabilities and specify their needs and mandated services – will still exist unless Congress decides to change the law. More than 1 in 10 public school students in every state has an IEP.

But the concern among many advocates and families is that consolidating the budget means some states can choose to eliminate necessary services and that enforcement to ensure these and other required services are being provided will be even more difficult. One major reason is that filing a civil rights case is already substantially weakened. 

Before Trump took office in January, there was a backlog of 12,000 civil rights cases pending in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the federal office that investigates civil rights complaints, according to The Hechinger Report. About more than half involved students with disabilities.

At this point, about half of the office’s staff have been laid off, though some are expected to return to work, and seven of its 12 regional civil rights enforcement offices have closed. The result is a fear among advocacy groups, parents and others that violations will become increasingly harder to monitor and fix.

Examine How Federal Funding Changes May Affect Resources for Families, Teachers and Students

Every state is required to have at least one Parent Training and Information Center, which provides free support, information, advocacy and dispute resolution for families of children with disabilities. They are staffed primarily by parents who have children with disabilities.

According to Education Week, a Sept. 5 announcement by the Trump administration indicated grants will continue to all centers. There are approximately 75.

Community Parent Resource Centers offer similar services but with a particular focus on students in underserved and low-income communities, where families might have a more difficult time accessing information and resources. The Education Week article also reported that the Trump administration canceled grants totaling $360,000 for three out of the 26 existing centers.

For reporters seeking to cover these changes, Mark Lieberman of Education Week named the affected Community Parent Resource Centers for this reporting resource:

• Open Doors for Multicultural Families in Washington state 
• Central Oregon Disability Support Network, Inc. 
• Community Inclusion and Development Alliance in New York

“So much will be lost” if either of the programs are eliminated, Burke said. “There’s not a place in every state for families to go to learn their special education rights. And a lot of the staff have been working there for decades. We’re going to lose decades of knowledge and experience in special education because all of those people are not going to have positions anymore.”

Another major concern is that grants for doctoral students in special education may be cut, exacerbating an already existing teaching shortage; there are about 270,000 open special education personnel positions currently, VanderPloeg said.

Additionally, four out of more than two dozen active State Personnel Development Grants, which aim to increase the pipeline of special education teachers, were canceled; they added up to $6 million, Education Week reported. So were 13 grants, worth $3.8 million total, out of about 100 grants for university programs that promote doctoral research and professional training for aspiring special education teachers.

As anxiety and uncertainty grow, college students and professors in the special education field are preparing for the worst. In a recent story, Lieberman described how one professor shifted an in-person orientation online to spare doctoral students travel costs if a stop-work order arrived during the event, preventing students from being reimbursed for their travel.

Other proposed changes to education and health programs nationwide that don’t specifically touch on students in special education will still have a significant effect on services to students. These include cuts to Medicaid, which reimburse schools for numerous necessities for those with disabilities, such as physical and occupational therapy, screening and evaluations and assistive technology.  

Where to Find Your Next Special Education Story

Here are a few tips to write about the latest in special education: 

• Connect with your school district’s special education director for a general interview before a crisis hits to find out the challenges and successes. Ask how they use their distinct federal funding streams and what it allows them to do. The Trump administration says its funding plans will relieve administrative burdens. Is that true? 
• Reach out and keep an eye on information from national organizations, such as the Council for Exceptional Children and the Council of Administrators of Special Education. There are also many organizations focused on specific disabilities, such as autism or deafness. 
• Follow the Department of Education on X – it posts frequently. Arundel said it’s often faster than a formal press release. She suggests following the official Education Department account, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s account and the Education Department’s press secretary account. 
• While special education is a fairly bipartisan issue, issues that affect it can be partisan, such as school choice and education funding. Some conservative groups to follow in these areas are Parents Defending Education and American Federation for Children. 
• Find parent groups of students with disabilities on social media, such as Facebook. 
• Interview people at state Parent Training and Information Centers and Community Parent Resource Centers. It’s a good place for general information but also to track the budget effects. Are they already being downsized or shut down, or do they fear it’s going to happen?  
• Investigate personnel issues: Is your school district seeing a teacher shortage in special education? What is the impact? Michigan has launched a statewide effort to recruit personnel to serve students with disabilities. Is your state doing anything similar?