Neal McCluskey
Neal McCluskey
Two major functions of the Department of Education are funding and enforcing education for students with disabilities. I tackle these next in our series about what to do with different US education jobs as the department ends. Andrew Gillen first covered student loans, and then I wrote about the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
A lot of what the Education Department does for students with disabilities is civil rights enforcement, particularly under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) but also under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014. As discussed regarding all OCR functions, enforcement of civil rights for students with disabilities should be moved to the Department of Justice (DOJ), which is already tasked with civil rights enforcement for people with disabilities in education and beyond. If the DOJ believes it needs more resources to take on work formerly done by the OCR, it should make the case to Congress.
Civil rights enforcement is a proper federal role under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Providing funding for students with disabilities, while well-intentioned, is not.
Ideally, all funding, in both formula and discretionary grant forms, would be phased out. But if it is not, responsibility for distributing education funds, such as the $14.2 billion in formula grants to states under the IDEA, should go to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Workforce and rehabilitation funding should go to the Department of Labor (DOL). The HHS has its own disability services—not to mention its Office for Civil Rights—while the DOL already works with people with disabilities.
It would also be wise, if they are not eliminated, to consolidate the many discretionary grant programs into block grants that states can distribute according to their particular needs. » Read More
https://www.cato.org/blog/funding-enforcement-students-disabilities-are-removed-department-education-where-should-they