1. United States
2. Ill.
3. Letter

I am writing about an important study related to IDEA (Federal Individuals with Disabilities Act), NLTS 2012, that has been arbitrarily halted. A longitudinal, nationally representative study of youth with disabilities was congressionally mandated in the 1987 (NLTS) to study youth transitioning from high school into adult life, studying their experiences in secondary school and post-school outcomes such as their ability to get employment, attend post secondary school, and live independently. In 2000, the ten year study NLTS2 was authorized with several waves of data collection over a longer period of time. A third study added to this data collection and analysis effort, NLTS 2012, and is in the final months of concluding the work. Not only were several significant report deliverables produced from data collected from these studies, the data were made available to other researchers and doctoral students who published further analysis of these extensive data from thousands of youth with disabilities. NLTS 2012 is in the final months of concluding all work and releasing the final reports and database. This important work was suddenly terminated, not by congress, but by the unauthorized DOGE. The incredible financial waste to pull the plug at the end, not to mention the loss of such valuable information from this study, is appalling. It is as imprudent as dropping out of university with one month left before graduation or defaulting on a home mortgage with only a few remaining payments. After investing so much time and taxpayer money, I urge you to see that this study be allowed to conclude, it is ever so close to doing so.