From Urban Institute 10/17/2025
On Friday, October 10, the Trump administration fired almost all employees at the US Department of Education’s (ED’s) Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). A federal judge later temporarily blocked the firings, ruling that the administration couldn’t conduct mass layoffs during a government shutdown.
Required under federal law, OSERS ensures states provide a “free and appropriate public education” to the more than 7.5 million prekindergarten–grade 12 students with disabilities in the US. As part of this work, the office distributes billions of federal dollars to help states provide special education services from early childhood through postsecondary education. OSERS also funds and provides support services for young children with disabilities, including children who were born prematurely or exposed to toxic substances in utero.
Read more: https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/threat-staffing-cuts-eds-office-special-education-puts-disabled-students-civil-rights
