Trump moves special education oversight to Kennedy's health department

The Trump administration has shifted day-to-day administration of special education programs to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, putting the federal office that oversees disability education under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s department. The move pulls the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, including the Office of Special Education Programs, out of the Education Department and into a health agency that many advocates see as an ill fit for a civil-rights law.

That matters because the Office of Special Education Programs is responsible for making sure states comply with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. IDEA guarantees a free appropriate public education and related services for eligible children with disabilities ages 3 to 21, and it governs the core rules schools must follow when they identify, evaluate, and serve students. In the 2022-23 school year, 7.5 million students ages 3 to 21 received special education and related services under IDEA, about 15% of all public school students. The Education Department’s fiscal year 2026 budget request sought $14.9 billion for IDEA Grants to States.

Advocacy groups said the shift risks weakening that system at the very point families depend on it most. The Autism Society of America opposed transferring IDEA functions to HHS, while the Council for Exceptional Children said the move erodes federal support for special education. The National Parents Union said parents had been left in the dark and vowed to challenge the change in Congress, the courts, and elections. Critics also pointed to Kennedy’s repeated promotion of debunked autism claims, warning that special education could be nudged toward a more medicalized model rather than treated as an education right.

The administration says the interagency agreements are meant to cut red tape and better align services for children with disabilities under HHS. But the practical stakes are immediate: who handles complaints when a district misses services, how states are monitored, and how clearly families can navigate federal oversight when the lead agency changes. The reorganization is also part of a broader push to dismantle the Education Department and move its work elsewhere, including the transfer of civil-rights enforcement in schools from Education to the Department of Justice.

For disabled students and their families, the question is no longer whether the federal government will rewrite the map. It is whether the new map will protect the rights IDEA was written to guarantee, or leave enforcement slower, blurrier, and farther from the classroom.