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A U.S. Department of Education proposal to remove certain data collections for racial disparities in special education has drawn opposition from special education organizations, disability rights advocacy groups and a coalition of state attorneys general.
The Education Department, in a March 23 Federal Register notice, sought public comment on proposed changes to the federally required State Performance Plans and Annual Performance Reports for special education. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, each state must develop these documents to evaluate their efforts to implement IDEA requirements and detail how it will make improvements.
The plans and reports include indicators that measure student and family outcomes and that help evaluate compliance with IDEA requirements. States must report each year in their Annual Performance Report the progress they have made in meeting targets established in their State Performance Plan.
Specifically, the department has suggested eliminating data collections used in these reports for:
- Significant discrepancies in suspension and expulsion rates for students with disabilities.
- Significant discrepancies in suspension and expulsion for students with disabilities by race and ethnicity, and policies contributing to those discrepancies.
- Disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in specific disability categories that result from inappropriate identification.
In its notice, the Education Department said it wants to reduce state data collection burdens by better aligning the reporting process with IDEA statutory requirements, eliminating duplicative reporting, and streamlining reporting.
The department estimated the changes would save about three hours in paperwork burden for each state and territory.
“The proposed changes also reflect the administration’s priorities to collect and disseminate meaningful data, improve outcomes, and increase parent choice,” the department’s proposal said.
‘Undermine the purpose of the IDEA’
But some advocates and state attorneys general are opposing the changes, saying the data collections on racial disparities are essential to states’ compliance with IDEA.
The Council of Administrators of Special Education, in a May 22 public comment submission, said it “feels strongly that these indicators are critical to shining a light on inequities regarding discipline and disproportionate representation in special education.”
CASE took issue with the Education Department’s rationale that there is already a “wealth of discipline data related to students with disabilities.” The department specially called out the Civil Rights Data Collection, which is conducted by its Office for Civil Rights, as providing such data.
CASE called this approach “deeply flawed” given that OCR has undergone significant staff reductions under the Trump administration. The Education Department’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget recommends reducing OCR staffing to 271 and shrinking the office’s budget to $91 million in FY 27. OCR had 530 staffers and a $140 million budget in FY25.
The proposed changes also received opposition from the National Association of State Directors of Special Education. In a comment filed May 19, NASDSE wrote that while it recognizes the intention to give states maximum flexibility in oversight, “the unintended consequence” is that state education agencies will have “less data immediately available to them and general supervision efforts will be inhibited.”
State attorneys general from 18 states and the District of Columbia wrote in a May 22 letter that the proposals “undermine the purpose of the IDEA as well as States’ interest in ensuring equal educational opportunities for all students, including students of color and students with disabilities.”
The attorneys general called the existing data reporting requirements “minimally burdensome” but “vital” for ongoing data collection required by federal and state law.
In a May 22 letter, the Consortium for Constituents with Disabilities’ Education Task Force said eliminating data collections for suspensions and expulsions, including by race and ethnicity, would “sabotage the oversight and monitoring role required in IDEA.”
Without these indicators, states would no longer be required to set targets for compliance and would make non-White students with disabilities “completely invisible in the data,” CCD wrote.
On the other hand, AASA, The School Superintendents Association, supported the removal of these data collections. AASA, in a May 19 letter, said it applauded the Education Department’s Office of Special Education Programs for striving to remove data requests “that are unnecessarily burdensome and not required” by IDEA.
CASE, meanwhile, said that while it generally supports efforts to eliminate duplicative reporting, easing these paperwork burdens at the state level would not necessarily help local administrators. The district-level pressures may be even greater at smaller and rural districts that have fewer staff and resources, CASE said.
Other suggested changes
Several of the Education Department’s other proposed changes to the data collection received support.
For instance, the Consortium for Constituents with Disabilities supported a proposal to clarify that states must report whether students who qualify for IDEA services can graduate with a regular high school diploma by meeting requirements that differ from those for nondisabled peers.
“Too often, parents and students are uninformed and discover after leaving school that the diploma awarded does not provide the services and opportunities anticipated,” the group wrote.
NASDSE, however, said this adjustment would require states to make substantial modifications to their existing data collection systems. Instead, NASDSE recommended collecting this information through metadata reporting or narrative responses on the State Performance Plans and Annual Performance Reports.
Some 313 comments were submitted before the public comment period ended on May 22. The proposed changes wouldn’t go into effect until February 2028.
The Education Department has routinely made updates to these data collections, having revised them five times since 2005, in 2012, 2014, 2017, 2020 and 2023.
