The Trump administration’s push to dismantle the Education Department and reassign key functions has raised alarms among families of children with disabilities. A recent episode of Slate’s What Next podcast explores what reduced federal oversight could mean for students and parents.
Children with disabilities have a legally mandated place in public schools under federal law, but their support has often depended on robust federal oversight. In 2025, the Trump administration accelerated efforts to shrink and reorganize the U.S. Department of Education, including exploring a transfer of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act program to another federal agency and laying off staff who help monitor compliance. Administration plans and court actions this year have focused on redistributing student-loan operations and special-education oversight to other agencies such as the Small Business Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, while critics warn of disruption to services and enforcement. The Education Department also shed staff in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services amid a broader downsizing, intensifying concerns about accountability. (apnews.com)
In a November 10, 2025, episode of Slate’s What Next podcast titled “Is Special Ed Getting Shut Down, Too?,” host Mary Harris examines the ramifications of the administration’s moves for students with disabilities and their families. The episode focuses on how targeting the department that oversees special education could affect services in schools nationwide. (podcasts.apple.com)
Guest Pepper Stetler, author of “A Measure of Intelligence: One Mother’s Reckoning with the IQ Test” and a professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, discusses the challenges parents face navigating special-education services and the historic fragility of supports for disabled students. (podcasts.apple.com)
Podcast production is credited to Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther. What Next is Slate’s daily news podcast, with new episodes released on weekday mornings. (podcasts.apple.com)
