Protecting Education for Children with Disabilities

Floor Speech

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Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, it is always an honor and a pleasure to work with the gentlewoman from Connecticut, a distinguished National Teacher of the Year and an amazing educator who, like myself, went from the classroom to the Halls of Congress to advocate for our students nationally.

The promise of a free and quality education is a vital part of the American Dream. The embodiment of that promise came in 1975 when Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to ensure that children with disabilities could receive a free, fair, and equal education.

This landmark legislation changed the lives of millions of Americans. The disabled children's right to an education would not only be recognized, but it would be funded and enforced nationwide.

Today, 7.5 million students rely on IDEA funding, and that is nearly one in seven students whose specialized education is funded in part by the Department of Education.

Every school district in the country has families that have benefited from the IDEA, and its 50 years of enactment have improved public education for all students. That is why the Trump administration's actions to gut staffing at the Department of Education and move the Office of Special Education programs to the Department of Health and Human Services is so devastating. HHS does not have the structure, nor the staff, to administer the $15 billion a year that this office is responsible for.

The administration also gutted the Office of Civil Rights, which is responsible for investigating civil rights abuses in schools. The OCR was responsible for ensuring that students with disabilities got the quality education they are entitled to and that cases of neglect and abuse were duly prosecuted.

With the Department of Education fragmented, teachers and administrators won't be able to access the resources they need; parents will be unable to get the proper support; and the students will be the ones who pay the price.

What is clear is that the Department of Education is the only Department equipped to be charged with the education of all students, including students with disabilities, not HHS, not the Department of Labor, not the Department of Justice.

Creating more hoops for schools to jump through and shattering known systems and protocol will, at the end of the day, hurt the students this administration claims they are protecting.

Republicans have not allowed IDEA to be fully funded. Republicans are looking to defund public schools, leaving parents with fewer choices and options in educating their children. Republicans' obsession with dismantling the Department of Education appears to be the only education policy they really have.

Our students need more. Our teachers deserve more. Our schools require more to fulfill the American promise of a free and quality education for every American child.

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