Protecting Education for Children with Disabilities

Floor Speech

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Ms. TOKUDA. Mr. Speaker, only 50 years ago, we made a promise as a nation. When Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, we affirmed a simple and profound truth: Every child, no matter their disability or ability, has the right to a free and appropriate public education; not as charity, not as an afterthought, but as a civil right.

Let's be honest. That promise has never been self-executing. Making IDEA real has required vigorous Federal oversight, strong civil rights enforcement, litigation when necessary, strong parents who demand only the best for their child, and a willingness to demand more--not less-- resources and accountability.

That is why the Trump administration's dismantling of the Department of Education, the decimation of special education enforcement, and the hollowing out of the Office for Civil Rights is so dangerous. This is not reform. This is retreat. It will set public education back more than 50 years.

In Hawaii, we know what happens when FAPE is treated as optional. The Felix Consent Decree raised the alarm more than 30 years ago that we were failing our children. We are the tenth largest school district in the Nation. One in ten of our students have an IEP. Many live on our neighbor islands in rural and remote communities, where even access to services or reliable internet is a challenge. Federal enforcement is not abstract to us. It is the difference between support and neglect.

The reality is, IDEA has also been an unfunded mandate. You have heard it here today from my colleagues. The Federal Government once promised to cover 40 percent of the cost. It has never met that promise, never rising above 10 or 12 percent at best. Now, instead of finally doing what we owe our children, our families, our communities, this administration wants to walk away altogether.

I am a proud product of our public schools. I am a proud parent of public school students, and I believe deeply that an injury to one is an injury and insult to all.

The dismantling, defunding, destaffing, restructuring of the Department of Education is death by a thousand cuts. If we allow this to continue, if we walk back all the gains we have made as a result of IDEA, it will leave all our children behind.

We must not, cannot let this happen, and I assure you, all of us here today on this floor will stand in the way of the destruction of the Department of Education and the demise of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

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