US Education Department Layoffs: Day 2
What happened since the announcements of 11 March 2025?
I have five or eight sources1 about the influence of the cuts documented in US Ed layoffs: Coverage and opinions 12 March 2025 here on Special Education Today. In truth, I didn’t report much (if anything) in the way of opinion in that post, but this post is a little heavier on the analysis part of the story.
NBCNews
Reporting for NBC News, Tyler Kingkade and Adam Edelman covered “What the Education Department layoffs could mean for students with disabilities: Experts say this week's mass layoffs could lead to less research and support for children with special needs” on 12 March 2025. They opened with “Massive layoffs initiated this week at the Education Department could hamstring the federal government’s efforts to assist students with disabilities, former officials and education experts said, citing blows to the agency’s civil rights and research divisions.”
Mr. Kingkade and Mr. Edelman continued, explaining how layoffs in the staff of the Office for Civil Rights will affect handling of violations. They reported that about half of the 12000 pending investigations are about disabilities rights. They cite comments by people with expertise about civil rights work as indicating that that people should expect those investigations to be delayed.
There is lots more in the report by Mr. Kingkade and Mr. Edelman. I encourage readers to review it.
Other news sources
Other news organizations had reports that noted effects on students with disabilities and their families, but did not provide a lot of detail.
Mary Louise Kelly of NPR’s All Things Considered interviewed educator reporter Cory Turner about the layoffs. There is an audio recording and a transcript available at “How the Trump administration's Education Department cuts are playing out.” Ms. Kelly and Mr. Turner mentioned effects on students with disabilities, but the instances mostly were superficial, not focal or specific.
Nicole Cohen reported for NPR about “What parents, teachers and school choice groups think of Education Department cuts” on 12 March 2025. She cited a statement by Randi Weingarten that 10 million students, including some with disabilities will be affected.2
Writing in the HuffPost, Nathalie Baptiste reported “The Latest Government Layoffs Put Kids Everywhere At Risk: The Education Department is being cut in half, and every part of the agency is being hit by the layoffs” on 12 March 2025. Ms. Baptiste focused her reporting on broad matters, with little about special education and students with disabilities. However, she noted that the Office of Civil Rights “has a yearslong backlog of complaintswhich Trump already exacerbated by freezing thousands of pending complaints (about half were from kids with disabilities). The layoffs are sure to make the backlog worse….”
Education Reform Now
Writing for Education Reform Now,3 James Murphy published “Three Charts Showing Who Secretary McMahon Cut at the Department of Education” on 12 March 2025. Using data aggregated by a former ED employee, Mr. Murphy provided analyses of “who [what positons] got cut.” From his data, he reported that financial aid, science of education, and civil rights as the most substantially affected areas.
The accompanying image shows one of Mr. Murhpy’s graphs about his findings. I annotated the image to emphasize the positions in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation.
Although there is little explicitly about special education, readers of SET may want to examine Mr. Murphy’s post, because he also reports layoffs by types of positions (e.g., attorney, education research, statistician, etc.).
Other organizations
Denise Stile Marshall, the chief executive officer for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates cited the ERN charts in a statement published 12 March 2025. In “COPAA Has Deep Concerns About Cuts to ED” there was little more than the figure by Mr. Murphy (which didn’t render in my browser).
I checked the Web sites of a couple of organizations that I thought might publish observations and updates about the effects of the layoffs of US ED staff members. Readers may want to monitor them: (a) the Arc, (b) the Council of Administrators of Special Education (a division of the Council for Exceptional Children), and (c) the COPAA site. Folks who check on them may need to search through subsections such as a blog, news, or advocacy to find relevant content.
Contribute
Please, dear readers, if you know of something relevant, post it in a comment (or send it to me directly).
Footnotes
I guess it depends on what one counts which is a source and which is something else (just a link?). Do you own counting!
Randi Weingarten’s statements were in a press release from the American Federation of Teachers. The part relevant to students with disabilities reads, ““Ten million students who rely on financial aid to go to college or pursue a trade will be left in limbo. States and districts will be forced to navigate funding crises without federal support, hurting millions of students with disabilities and students living in poverty.”
Education Reform Now is a nonprofit and non-partisan organization that describes itself as “promot(ing] increased resources and innovative reforms in K-16 public education, particularly for students of color and students from low0-income families.”