1. United States
2. N.Y.
3. Letter

Stop the administration's dismantling of the Department of Education. The inter-agency agreements transferring special education oversight to HHS and civil rights enforcement to the DOJ are a backdoor shutdown — one that Congress never authorized. These moves need to be blocked now. The IDEA is an education law, not a medical one. HHS doesn't have the expertise to manage it, and disability advocates who spent months in listening sessions with Secretary McMahon came out unified in their opposition to this transfer. Moving the Office for Civil Rights to the DOJ puts protections for Black and Latino students, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities in the hands of an agency with entirely different priorities and no institutional knowledge of school systems. EdTrust has made clear that the students who will suffer most are already the most underserved. This isn't reorganization — it's abandonment. Use every tool available to reverse these agreements and defend the department's mandate.