In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 7.5 million children 3 to 21 years old received services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in AY 2022-23.
About 980,000 of them were autistic, up from 498,000 in 2012-13.
It would also scrap the entire Department of Education.
During the campaign, Trump denied any connection with Project 2025 but is now stocking his administration with its architects.
Deborah Spitalnik at NJ Spotlight News:
Project 2025’s elimination of the federal Department of Education abdicates our responsibility as a society to provide children with equitable opportunities for learning and skill development to become productive, successful adults. For the 18% of school-age children receiving special education services in New Jersey and their counterparts across the country, the right to education came about through the courts and eventually federal law, now IDEA — the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
The Department of Education has an essential role in protecting rights, ensuring access and quality for children and young adults with disabilities, and requiring individual schools and each state to provide education that enables students with disabilities to learn and pursue life goals as do their typical peers. Project 2025 would allow states to use federal funds without oversight and opt out of educational programs, relegating students with disabilities to at best, second-class citizenship. Moving educational functions to the Department of Health and Human Services threatens students with disabilities, diminishing the power of education as a fundamental right and source of development for all children. As in threatening to change federal grant-making in the National Institutes of Health and other agencies, Project 2025 would eliminate Department of Education competitive grants, reducing educational innovation and improvement. For children with disabilities, federal grants to New Jersey have contributed to access to the general curriculum, creating positive school climates enabling all students to learn, and preparing students for adult life and employment. Project 2025 would eliminate these sources of innovation, stifling progress and foreclosing opportunities hard-won by years of advocacy. Head Start — which provides preschool education and health services in New Jersey for 12,748 poor children with and without disabilities, as well as families and pregnant women — would be eliminated by Project 2025.
