When we first shared this article, we talked about how Congress was heading into important budget discussions. These talks focus on the discretionary budget — the part of the federal budget that’s decided each year and funds key programs like special education, disability services, and family supports. We’ve been following it closely, and here’s the latest update. (You can scroll down to read more about what these programs include after this update.)
The Senate Committee on Appropriations for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies has come together across party lines to protect important educational programs for our kids and families. They’ve rejected nearly all of the proposals to cut funding for individuals with disabilities — or to divert national program funds into state block grants — that were originally proposed by the administration.
This means that when Congress reviews the national budget this September (as part of SB 2587 for fiscal year 2026), those proposed changes won’t be included. And in most cases, funding levels were fully preserved. Note that since this was also the case in the last two budget processes, the federal government is in effect maintaining 2023 levels of support.
Here’s what’s to know:
Timeline and next steps
Keep in mind that the process isn’t finished yet. Congress is in recess for August, and both the Senate and House are expected to vote on the budget bill in September — just ahead of the new fiscal year starting October 1. The Senate was expected to be the most bipartisan part of the process since any bill needs 60 votes to move forward. While nothing is final, it’s still important for families to understand what the administration originally proposed — and how those changes could impact the programs your child relies on.
What families can do
The good news is that many of the most concerning cuts mentioned earlier in this article were not included in the Senate’s version of the bill. It looks like they’ve created a version that can meet the 60-vote requirement, but we won’t know for sure until both the Senate and House vote on it in September, ahead of the October 1 deadline. In the meantime, it’s always worth taking a few minutes to contact your representatives and let them know how essential these programs are for your child and your family.
COPAA has an alert that you can use to contact your House Representative and Senators. In addition, you can make an appointment to meet with your local representative during the August recess to share your story and explain why the federal role in education is so important to families raising children with disabilities.
Special education funding is an issue close to the heart of any parent with a child with a disability. While it’s never felt particularly solid, the last few months have felt as though we are swimming in uncertainty. July 4, 2025, completed the process of enacting H.R.1, a budget reconciliation bill that allows Congress to make changes to both spending and taxation over the next ten years in order to balance the budget. That bill has huge implications for state budgets, especially Medicaid and SNAP, which will also have an impact on state education budgets.
However, there are more budget discussions coming up as Congress reviews the discretionary budget that is negotiated each year and is not part of HR.1. Each year, the President sends Congress a budget request for the next fiscal year. It’s basically a wishlist of what programs the President wants to fund and by how much, but it’s up to Congress to decide what actually gets funded. This yearly process is called appropriations, and it affects what’s known as the discretionary budget, which includes funding for things like special education, disability services, and family supports. These programs aren’t guaranteed the same funding every year. Depending on what Congress decides, the money for them can go up, go down, or even be cut completely.
You may wonder if it is difficult to pass an appropriations bill and why the current administration did not include it in HR 1. COPAA Federal Policy Adviser, Laura Kaloi, who we consulted about both the process and the meaning of these changes, explains the two separate processes.
When it comes to general education, the good news is an additional $60 million increase for charter school grants. Title 1 and IDEA Part B (grants to states) funding also appear to be the same as last year (FY 2025). But the budget request also details several changes that are concerning. There are overall cuts to the federal education budget that don’t directly impact special education, but our children are general education students first, and many are directly impacted by the programs being cut.
Proposed changes
The budget would consolidate 18 grant programs into a single $2 billion fund called the “K–12 Simplified Funding Program.” States and districts would have a lot of flexibility in how they spend it, but the total amount would be $4.5 billion less than what those programs currently provide. Funding is reduced overall by 69% across these programs, including services for K-12 English learners, teacher training, state assessments, etc. This would affect students who need it the most, such as migrant children, homeless youth, and children who are neglected, delinquent, and at risk.
Note that most special education costs come from local funding sources, i.e. your local education authority (school district or charter). Federal funding covers about 12% on average, and most states add around 30-40%. This means the rest has to come from the district’s general fund. When there’s less money in the general fund, it’s harder for school districts to properly fund special education.
Proposed changes
We have heard from various agencies the concerns that Head Start funding will be cut. This is a federal program for eligible low-income families that supports more than 675,000 children and their parents with low-cost or free early education; it also ensures that these programs are inclusive for children with disabilities. The program has been used by some families to provide access to an inclusive setting at the same time as accessing IDEA Part C Early Start. The concerns started early on in the Trump Administration when payments to the Head Start programs were temporarily frozen.
The White House’s HHS budget proposal continues the current funding for Head Start directly supporting local level institutions, “including faith-based centers.” The budget proposes a set of reforms, which aims to cut the red tape preventing access and claims these reforms will increase parental choice, enhance efficiency, promote parental engagement, and improve health, education, and employment outcomes. However they also include removing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), which may impact the capacity of the program to serve students with disabilities and other underserved communities.
How it affects families
If the administration changes the rules, Head Start programs may no longer be required to give places to children with disabilities and may exclude children with extensive support needs like other preschool programs.
Status
It’s not yet clear what the administration means by removing diversity, equity, and inclusion from a program designed to provide a head start to children who often did not have opportunities for early childhood education.
No cuts to special education funding — but still not enough
The administration has indicated that it wants to spend the same amount of money on special education in FY 2026 as it did in FY 2025, which may sound okay initially. But funding has stayed flat since 2023 and isn’t enough to keep up with rising costs and no adjustments for cost of living — in reality, the budget is actually going down, giving schools less to work with.
There’s also a nationwide shortage of special education teachers and providers, meaning that school districts have to pay higher wages to employ special education teachers or related service providers. Keeping the funding the same is not enough to meet the growing needs.
You might be surprised that the current administration isn’t proposing a cut to special education funding. In fact, they’re providing $14.9 billion for the IDEA Grants to States program — $677.5 million more than in 2025. This is, they claim, the highest level of funding ever provided under the Grants to States program, which would amount to about $1,944 per student for an estimated 7.6 million students with disabilities nationwide in 2026.
If these numbers don’t sound like enough, you are not mistaken. The federal government has never fully funded IDEA, and these numbers are far from what’s actually needed to meet our kids’ needs. Read more about the history of federal funding for IDEA here.
IDEA provides three main types of funding to support children with disabilities. Part B 611 covers services for children ages 6–21 and helps states give children with disabilities a free, appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE); Part B 619 provides funding for preschoolers ages 3-5; Part C provides early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities from birth to age 2 and supports their families; and Part D funds include discretionary grants to support various initiatives, including state personnel development, technical assistance, information dissemination, educational technology, and parent training and information centers.
IDEA is a federal mandate, and public schools that receive any public funding have to comply with IDEA, but IDEA does not cover the cost of doing so. More importantly, the administration plans to reorganize the way it spends IDEA funding, which may highly impact services for your child. This plan is set out in the Special Education Simplified Funding Program.
A major change in the budget that relates to special education is a proposal to roll six key special education programs into one grant that goes directly to states. Under the plan, preschool grants (Section 619 of IDEA Part B) and many programs currently run under IDEA Part D would be combined into the larger grants that go to states under Part B.
While the total funding amount wouldn’t be cut, the money would no longer be set aside for these specific programs — instead, it would be given to states to spend as part of their general IDEA funding.
Kaloi explains some of the issues with this budget reorganization, including the proposal to combine, or “block grant,” certain IDEA funds — such as preschool and Part D funding — which isn’t allowed under IDEA law. These funds are meant for specific services, and combining them could lead to cuts in the supports our children rely on.
Among the six programs being consolidated is how preschool special education is funded. Part B grants are divided into grants to states (Section 611) for children with disabilities ages 3 through 21, and preschool grants (Section 619) specifically for children with disabilities ages 3 through 5. The proposed change combines the preschool grants program into the total state grant so that all Part B funding is lumped together. Here’s the funding breakdown:
For FY 2026, the total for special education programs is increased from $15.17 billion to $15.43 billion — a total increase of $258 million. This includes:
What does this mean for families?
The state still has a mandate under IDEA to provide preschool for eligible students with disabilities ages 3-5, but under this change, states can determine how much of their total grant they spend on preschool. Preschool funding is now blended into a larger pool, which gives states more control but also means there’s no guarantee those funds will actually be spent on preschool. Note that the preschool budget never covered the full cost of this anyway.
Part D funding in the special education budget is greatly impacted. Part D refers mostly to national activities that are overseen by the Department of Education, often in the form of discretionary grants, such as those carried out by Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), to universities or non-profits. The budget doesn’t cut funding but shifts six IDEA Part D programs into state grants — meaning states, not the federal government, will decide how that money is used to support services and families. For example, the White House proposed $0 budget lines for these items:
Currently, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) provides discretionary grants to state educational agencies, institutions of higher education, and other nonprofit organizations:
What does this all mean for families? Let’s explore more in depth.
Technical Assistance and Dissemination
The Technical Assistance and Dissemination program helps schools, families, and service providers learn what works best for supporting kids with disabilities. It funds projects and centers that share helpful tools, training, and research-based practices in areas such as early intervention services, dispute resolution, and positive behavioral interventions.
One example of Part D technical assistance is the National Consortium on Deafblindness (NCDB), a federally funded technical assistance and dissemination center that supports children and youth who are deafblind, and the professionals that serve them. NCDB provides technical assistance, information services, and personnel training and is funded by an OSEP Part D grant. Individual states also have federally funded, statewide Deafblindness technical assistance and training projects serving individuals from birth to age 21 with combined hearing and vision problems, their families, and service providers.
Technical Support and Information has previously funded TIES Center and more recently, SWIFT (Schoolwide Integrated Framework for Transformation) Center, and other programs that support innovative and inclusive practices.
SWIFT, based at the University of Kansas, received a five-year, $24.5 million grant from OSEP and a $3 million RAISE research grant from the Institute of Education Sciences. According to Tash.org, through its technical assistance and support, SWIFT has worked with 64 schools across 16 school districts, in four states, including California, to implement and scale up inclusive education practices.
Parent Training and Information Centers (PTIs)
Also missing in the national level funding for IDEA is $33 million for Parent Training and Information Centers (PTIs). These national-level grants fund Parent Training Information Centers in each state. (Find your center here.) The total amount of national-level activity funding is added to the state level funding as $278 million (an increase of $1 million) in undistributed funding. This means that states can still use these funds to fund technical expertise and parent information centers, but these will now effectively be state-funded centers and therefore less likely to push back on state policy where it is lacking.
In California, six of the seven PTIs also accept funding from the state as a Family Empowerment Center. The exception, DREDF, only accepts federal funding and has been the powerhouse behind several key lawsuits and campaigns to hold the State of California accountable for special education.
IDEA Part D is still the law, and the federal government is still responsible for meeting its purpose “to ensure that educators and parents have the necessary tools to improve educational results for children with disabilities by supporting system improvement activities; coordinated research and personnel preparation; coordinated technical assistance, dissemination, and support; and technology development and media services; and to assess, and ensure the effectiveness of, efforts to educate children with disabilities.”
No national funding for IDEA. However, the proposals have to be viewed in the light of the administration's desire to close the Department of Education. There is no funding allocated for IDEA at a national level, and all funding is diverted to state departments of education.
For example, programs like State Personnel Development and Technical Assistance and Dissemination — which received $39 million each in 2025 — have no funding budgeted for 2025 or 2026. On top of that, the $115 million that supported preparing special education personnel has also been cut.
Can states hold themselves accountable? The White House proposes shifting the funding to the State Department of Education. But that raises a big concern: can the same agency that’s in charge of running special education programs also be trusted to make sure those programs are working the way they should? For example, states have their own legal duties under IDEA, such as Child Find, providing FAPE, and so on; however, IDEA, Part D assigns responsibilities to the federal government to provide support for the states. With the new proposal, each state’s department of education wouldn’t be legally responsible for carrying out these national-level activities that they are being given funding for.
Losing national support might leave kids behind. The Part D shift is also problematic because many of these roles, such as technical support for Deafblind children, serve very small populations, and small states may find it difficult to provide this technical support without the economies of scale provided by a national program. IDEA was designed with separate funding sections to make sure each group it serves gets the specific financial support they need. Without targeted funding at a national level, and with most states facing a funding crisis, we are likely to lose programs, such as technical assistance for Deafblind students or for inclusive education.
Loss of independence from the state. Many institutions, such as Parent Training and Information Centers (PTI), benefit from having independence from their state department of education to provide critical advice for parents and individuals with disabilities. For example, many PTIs enable parents to advocate for systemic change and challenge the implementation of IDEA in their schools through the due process system. If their funding grant depended on the state department of education, they may be reluctant to engage in advocacy activities. Parents need unbiased advocacy that protects the rights of their children.
The current administration has a stated goal to eliminate the US Department of Education. This was announced in an Executive Order on March 20, 2025. Even before the order, Secretary for Education Linda McMahon made drastic staff cuts in the department that will affect the capacity for the department to do its work, particularly the work it is tasked with under IDEA and ADA, which ensures that children with disabilities are not discriminated against in the public education systems that each state provides. Here are some of the proposed cuts and changes.
Proposed staff cuts to the ED
On March 11, 2025, the department announced that its goal was to cut its 4,133 workforce by 50%. Some workers had already left, and others were placed on administrative leave at the end of March. The Office of Civil Rights was particularly hard hit. Out of 12 offices around the country, seven were shut, in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, and Cleveland, laying off 240 workers, mostly civil rights attorneys.
The layoffs at the ED had been halted by a court order, but the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) stopped that order, allowing the ED to continue firing staff. The decision was widely reported as allowing the administration to close the ED, but it only allows them to lay off staff while the lower courts determine the outcome of cases litigating this decision. This decision will significantly impact the ability of the ED to perform important functions such as data collection, publication, and holding states accountable for implementing IDEA and ADA through the Office of Civil Rights. The court did not give reasons for its decision, but a minority group of justices wrote a dissent.
Kaloi emphasizes that closing the Department of Education makes it difficult to carry out its authorized functions.
The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Education is responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination federal law, such as those that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, as well as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability.
The OCR collects and monitors data and handles complaints related to civil rights violations in education. Each year, it investigates tens of thousands of these complaints, but it's known for being notoriously slow in doing so. Often, the complaint results in litigation against school districts or states that are failing to uphold the law, such as the recent case in Pasco, Florida where the US Department of Justice sued the school district for cutting the school day short 15 minutes for its students with extensive support needs.
Proposed changes and what this means for families
As of now, 50% of the staff was already laid off in March. The federal administration plans to close the entire office and move it to the Office of Civil Rights in HHS, which also has had cuts to staff and funding.
With these cuts, Kaloi tells us that fewer cases are being reviewed — some families wait months only to have their cases closed in just hours or days. If anything, families need more OCR attorneys rather than fewer so that the department can investigate more complaints faster. Kaloi explains why COPAA and other organizations are so concerned.
OSERS is made up of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA). As we explained earlier, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) provides discretionary grants to state educational agencies, institutions of higher education, and other nonprofit organizations.
Proposed changes and what this means for families
On February 10, 2025, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the independent research arm of the U.S. Department of Education, abruptly terminated 89 federally funded research contracts. These projects were worth about $900 million and had already been approved by Congress. The Department of Education budget request also decreases the IES funding by 67%, down to $261 million. This would eliminate key national programs that collect and share data, such as those by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs), Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS), and the Research, Development, and Dissemination (RD&D).
This decision is a major blow to the field of education, especially for special education. Not only were important research efforts cut short, but this move also sets back decades of progress in using research to guide how we support students. As a result, some of the most up-to-date data we rely on — like what's shared on the OSEP Open Data website — is already out of date. Like many organizations advocating for students with IEPs, we at Undivided use this data to understand the statistical landscape of special education and inform how we help parents navigate the system.
Without research funding, many research projects will not be completed. And without reliable research on best practices, how can educators use evidence-based practices? There’s also the risk that talented researchers will leave the field altogether, which means losing the experts who help us understand what students really need to thrive.
Another key change in the proposed budget is how Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) is funded under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) — a federal law that helps people, including youth and adults with disabilities, get the training and support they need to prepare for and succeed in jobs.
WIOA sets the rules and provides the funding, but each state runs its own VR program. In California, that’s the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR), which helps people with disabilities explore careers, gain skills, and find employment. In the proposed budget, $78 million of nationally distributed grants which used to be set aside separately for client assistance, supported employment, training and Protection & Advocacy organizations are now folded into the main VR state grant fund.
Proposed changes
The FY 2026 budget proposal would cut funding for Health and Human Services (HHS) from $127 billion in 2025 to $95 billion in 2026 — and includes staff reductions too. Under this cut, the budget consolidates programs formerly housed in the Administration for Community Living (ACL) into the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) under a new operating division, the Administration for Children, Families, and Communities (ACFC) — with $29.3 billion in discretionary funding to cover programs formerly administered by ACL. These programs, while not under IDEA law, play a big role in supporting children with disabilities, special education advocacy, training professionals, and helping families.
The Administration for Community Living (ACL) manages important programs that help people with disabilities and support families working through special education. Here’s what the FY 2026 budget means for these programs:
Kaloi shares that many of the cuts to staff and funding, and the reorganization at HHS, are going to impact families with children with disabilities.
Similar to changes in education funding, money that was once given directly to nonprofits and universities through federal grants will now go to state governments — giving states the power to decide how those funds are used. The State Councils in Developmental Disabilities and the Protection and Advocacy (P&A) organizations will lose their critical independence from the states that they are responsible for keeping accountable. This could impact the developmental disability community and reduce support for families navigating special education.
While programs such as State Councils and P&A (like each state’s Disability Rights organization) are saved and UCEDD will require legislation to be closed down, it is very important to tell our representatives how valuable these resources are to families.
You can find more detailed information on the reorganization of HHS in our article on changes to the federal landscape.
What this means for families
That means states get to decide how to use it, and programs that once got direct funding may now lose support unless the state chooses to keep funding them. Programs that once got direct federal funding must now compete at the state level or hope their state chooses to fund them. If a program your family relies on was funded by a competitive VR grant, such as DOR, you might see reduced services.
Congress still has to decide what funding to allocate for the financial year 2026. This is supposed to happen by October 1, 2025, but it doesn't always get finished on time, which is why they often need a Continuing Resolution (CR), just as they passed for FY 2025 in March 2025. Here’s the timeline on these processes:
Congress now has to pass appropriations bills for FY 2026. The Congressional appropriations process for FY 2026 begins after the White House issues its budget proposal.
Each federal department, like Education and Health and Human Services, submits detailed budget requests.
These proposals fall under the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Labor.
From March through May, the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies House Committee on Appropriations holds hearings on these budget requests.
Kaloi explains this process more in-depth.
We reported that on July 1, 2025, the federal government withheld $6.8 billion in education funding that has been authorized by Congress for disbursement to all the state governments for FY 2025. On July 14, 26 states sued the Department of Education to release funding that was delayed. Senator Shelley Moore Capito also demanded that the budget office release the money right away.
California’s public education system is without at least $928 million that should have been delivered on July 1. Without these funds, state departments of education will not be able to disburse expected funding to public schools that were expecting to use this funding immediately. The formula funds affected are authorized by ESSA under Title I-C, II-A, III-A, IV-A, IV-B grant program(s) for 2025. This does not directly affect special education funds, but any reduction in revenue is likely to have a huge impact on schools, especially when occurring without any time to plan ahead. It does impact funding for summer school, migrant children, English language learners, and adult literacy.
The budget proposals are just that: proposals. Further, the federal administration does not have the votes to pass one-sided appropriations bills through the Senate. Deals will be made, so it is vitally important for families to understand that the fight is not over. Families need to advocate at a federal level to keep these national activities AND at a state level if the funding is diverted, without any obligation to spend funds on these vital services.
We need to write, email, and message our Congress representatives and tell our stories so that they can understand how these separate funding streams have helped our families, and why passing the money to the state government might not always be better or even just as good.
COPAA has an alert that you can use to contact your House Representative and Senators. In addition, you can make an appointment to meet with your local representative during the August recess to share your story and explain why the federal role in education is so important to families raising children with disabilities.
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