SPECIAL EDUCATION'S WILD RIDE IN TRUMP'S AMERICA
WHEN "BACK TO THE STATES" MEANS BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD
Welcome to 2026, where special education policy has become America's most ambitious experiment in federalism since someone thought, "Hey, let's let each state decide its own drinking age!" Spoiler alert: That didn't end well either.
The Trump administration's promise to "return power to the states" has transformed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) from a federal guarantee into something resembling a choose-your-own-adventure book—except the adventure is your child's education, and some of the endings are… let's call them "suboptimal."
The Great Departmental Shuffle: Special Ed Musical Chairs
Picture this: You're a parent of a child with autism. Last year, you called the Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) when your school district tried to replace your son's speech therapy with "thoughts and prayers." This year? Good luck finding anyone to answer the phone.
Thanks to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—yes, that's a real thing, and no, Elon Musk did not name it after a meme cryptocurrency (okay, maybe he did)—OSEP has experienced "significant workforce optimization." Translation: They fired a bunch of people who actually knew what IDEA stood for.
But wait, there's more! Secretary Linda McMahon, fresh from her illustrious career in professional wrestling (because if anyone knows about body slams, it's special education), has floated the idea of moving IDEA oversight to the Department of Health and Human Services. Because when you think "educational rights," you naturally think "the people who regulate tongue depressors."
Critics worry this shift will transform special education from an educational model to a medical one—turning IEP meetings into something resembling a doctor's appointment where someone inevitably suggests you've "tried essential oils, right?"
The Funding Shell Game: Now You See It, Now It's a Block Grant
The good news? IDEA Part B funding remains "relatively stable" at $15.5 billion. The bad news? Everything else is being tossed into a legislative blender set to "puree."
The administration's "Special Education Simplified Funding Program" (working title: "IDEA, But Make It Vague") is consolidating smaller grants into block grants, giving states "flexibility." In policy-speak, "flexibility" is what you call it when you want to stop telling people what to do but also stop checking if they're doing anything at all.
Those specialized grants for teacher training, parent information centers, and educational technology? Gone faster than common sense at a school board meeting. Now states can spend that money however they want—on special education services, or perhaps a very nice statue of the state superintendent. Who's to say?
Oklahoma: The Volunteer Tribute of Education Reform
If special education reform were The Hunger Games, Oklahoma would be the district that volunteered as tribute before anyone even asked. Under former State Superintendent Ryan Walters—a man who approached education policy with the subtlety of a monster truck rally—the state became ground zero for "education federalism."
Oklahoma has long been at the bottom of national rankings for education funding and performance, which apparently qualified it as the perfect laboratory for radical experimentation. It's like choosing the Titanic as your test ship for a new hull design.
The Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship: A Legal Waiver Wrapped in a Voucher
Oklahoma's crown jewel is the expanded Lindsey Nicole Henry (LNH) Scholarship, which allows parents to use state funds for private school tuition. Sounds great, right?
Here's the fine print, buried somewhere between "terms and conditions" and "abandon all hope": Accepting the scholarship means waiving all your federal rights under IDEA.
Let that sink in. You're trading the legal protections that required your public school to provide a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) for a voucher to a private school that can legally provide... whatever they feel like providing. It's like trading your health insurance for a gift card to a medical-themed escape room.
The "stackable funding model" lets parents combine the LNH scholarship (up to $22,000+) with the Parental Choice Tax Credit (up to $7,500). If your child's private school costs more than that? Congratulations, you're now a special education crowdfunding campaign.
Legal Waiver Translation:
- What they say: "Parental choice and flexibility!"
- What it means: "The private school is not required to provide the same services a public school would; the parent assumes full financial and educational responsibility beyond the scholarship amount."
- What it really means: "Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor."
Indiana: The Other Test Subject
Indiana, not to be outdone by Oklahoma's enthusiasm for educational chaos, has also embraced its role as a pilot state. While Part B funding remains stable (that word again—"stable," doing a lot of heavy lifting), other grants are being block-granted faster than you can say "unintended consequences."
The Hoosier State is watching Oklahoma's experiment with the fascination of someone observing their neighbor try to trim a tree with a chainsaw while standing on a ladder. "Let's see how this goes before we fully commit," seems to be the strategy.
The DEI Purge: Because Inclusion Was Getting Too Inclusive
Consistent with the administration's war on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), Oklahoma has issued guidance ensuring special education instruction is "free from ideological bias."
Translation guide:
- "Ideological bias" = Anything that suggests some students might face different challenges based on their backgrounds
- "Academic mastery" = Teaching to the test, but make it sound fancy
- "Foundational literacy" = Reading, but we can't just call it that anymore
State-funded professional development now "strictly excludes DEI-related frameworks." Because when you're teaching a child with autism, dyslexia, and English as a second language, the last thing you want to consider is how diversity, equity, or inclusion might be relevant.
Universal Screening: Because We Needed More Acronyms
Beginning in the 2026-2027 school year, Oklahoma will implement mandatory universal screening for dyscalculia and math proficiency for grades 2-5. This sounds reasonable until you realize it's part of the state's "Strong Readers" framework—which is apparently now also responsible for math, because why have separate programs when you can just add more responsibilities to an already strained system?
The Teacher Recruitment Hunger Games
Oklahoma faces a severe special education teacher shortage, which they're addressing with the educational policy equivalent of throwing money at the problem and hoping it sticks.
The incentive package:
- $10,000 signing bonus for new special education teachers
- $20,000 for out-of-state recruits (because nothing says "we value education" like paying people extra to move to a state that ranks 49th in teacher pay)
- Mandatory 10% pay increase above district wages (doubled from the previous 5%, which really makes you wonder what they were thinking before)
It's like trying to bail out a sinking ship with a teaspoon made of gold. Sure, the teaspoon is valuable, but you're still sinking.
The "Education by Lawyer" Model
With the gutting of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), federal civil rights enforcement has pivoted from "proactive investigations" to "good luck figuring it out yourselves."
Oklahoma is developing its own state-level dispute resolution process, which sounds great until you realize it's replacing a federal system with actual enforcement power. It's like replacing the police department with a neighborhood watch that meets monthly and mostly discusses recycling schedules.
The result? Special education is becoming an "education by lawyer" function. Can't afford an attorney to navigate the new state-level mediation system? Well, that's what the "parental choice" is for—you can choose to give up your rights and take a voucher!
The Endrew F. Standard: The Last Line of Defense
In this chaos, the 2017 Supreme Court ruling in Endrew F. v. Douglas County remains the legal anchor. The Court unanimously rejected the "de minimis" (barely more than nothing) standard, declaring that schools must provide an IEP "reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child's circumstances."
In Oklahoma—which previously operated under that pathetically low standard—this was revolutionary. Schools can no longer offer "zombie IEPs" that copy-paste the same failing goals year after year.
The Endrew standard requires "appropriately ambitious" goals with "challenging objectives."
But here's the cruel irony: This protection only applies to public schools. The private schools accepting voucher students? They don't have to meet the Endrew standard. They don't have to meet any standard.
So Oklahoma is simultaneously:
- Holding public schools to a higher legal standard than ever before
- Incentivizing parents to leave those schools for private options with no standards at all
It's like finally getting your public pool up to Olympic specifications, then encouraging everyone to swim in the lake where there are no lifeguards and possibly alligators.
The Script: What to Say When Your IEP Meeting Goes Sideways
For parents still in public schools trying to hold the line, here's your Endrew-based script:
"I've reviewed the proposed goals, but I'm concerned they don't meet the substantive standard set by the Supreme Court in Endrew F. v. Douglas County. The Court was very clear that for a child to receive FAPE, their IEP must be 'reasonably calculated to enable the child to make progress appropriate in light of the child's circumstances.' These proposed goals feel like 'de minimis' progress. Can we revise this goal to reflect a full year of meaningful growth rather than just maintaining the status quo?"
Will this work? Maybe. Will it make you that parent? Absolutely. But when the alternative is watching your child tread water for another year, sometimes being "that parent" is the job description.
The Checklist: Because Bureaucracy Never Dies, It Just Gets Redistributed
If you're applying for the LNH Scholarship in Oklahoma, here's what you need:
Primary Eligibility Documents:
- MEEGS (Multidisciplinary Evaluation and Eligibility Group Summary)
- Current IEP or 504 Plan
- Your sanity (optional, but recommended)
Enrollment Documents:
- Private school acceptance letter
- Vendor Payee Form (with SSN, because privacy is so 2019)
- 9-digit zip code (because the state's financial system is apparently run on software from 1987)
For "Stacking" the Tax Credit:
- Enrollment Verification Number (EVN)
- 2024 tax returns
- A tuition statement showing the balance after the LNH scholarship
- A strong drink (not officially required, but recommended)
Critical Deadlines:
- March 16, 2026: PCTC application opens
- June 15, 2026: PCTC application closes
- December 1, 2026: Final LNH application deadline
- Sometime in 2027: You realize you've become an expert in education policy against your will
The Bottom Line: Choose Your Own Adventure (But Choose Wisely)
The "return to the states" experiment in special education is producing a patchwork system where your child's rights depend heavily on your zip code, your ability to navigate bureaucratic mazes, and increasingly, your ability to afford a lawyer.
The Questions Nobody's Answering:
What happens when block grants run out? States have "flexibility," but they also have budget crises. When the money's gone, it's gone.
Who enforces rights in private schools? If a private school accepting vouchers fails to serve a student with disabilities, there's no federal oversight, weakened state oversight, and a parent who signed away their IDEA rights.
What about the kids whose parents can't navigate this system? The LNH scholarship requires multiple applications, specific documentation, and meeting various deadlines. The students with the most significant needs often have parents who are already overwhelmed. This system rewards the organized and well-informed—not necessarily those with the greatest need.
Is anyone tracking outcomes? With OSEP gutted and OCR defunded, who's collecting data on whether any of this is actually working?
The Uncomfortable Truth
Special education in America was never perfect. The federal system had bureaucracy, compliance burdens, and frustrating limitations. But it also had something crucial: accountability.
When a school district violated IDEA, parents could file a complaint with OCR. When states weren't meeting their obligations, OSEP could intervene. The system had teeth.
The new model replaces federal accountability with "flexibility" and "choice." But flexibility without oversight is just another word for "optional." And choice without protection is just another word for "risk."
Oklahoma and Indiana aren't just test states for a new policy—they're test subjects in an experiment where the hypothesis is "maybe if we just let everyone do whatever they want, it'll work out fine."
History suggests this is optimistic.
A Modest Proposal (With Apologies to Jonathan Swift)
Perhaps we're thinking about this all wrong. Why stop at dismantling federal special education oversight? Let's go further:
- Block grant medical licenses: Let each state decide what qualifies as "doctor"
- Privatize the fire department: If your house is burning, you should have the "choice" of which private fire company to call
- Make traffic laws optional: "Return power to the drivers"
If this sounds absurd, ask yourself: Why is it less absurd when we're talking about the education of children with disabilities?
What Now?
For parents in Oklahoma, Indiana, and eventually other states joining this experiment:
Document everything. Keep copies of every IEP, every evaluation, every piece of correspondence. You're going to need it.
Know your rights—while you still have them. If you're in public school, the Endrew standard is your friend. Use it.
If you're considering a voucher, read the fine print. Actually read it. Then read it again. Then have a lawyer read it. Understand exactly what you're giving up.
Connect with other parents. Parent information centers are being defunded, but parent networks are free. Find your people.
Vote. In local school board elections, state legislature races, and everything else. Education policy isn't made in a vacuum—it's made by the people you elect.
The Final Word
The dismantling of federal special education oversight isn't happening in the shadows—it's happening in broad daylight, with press releases and pilot programs. Oklahoma and Indiana are the canaries in the coal mine, except the canaries are children with disabilities, and the coal mine is the American education system.
"Back to the states" sounds like a return to local control and common sense. But for special education, it might just mean back to the days when whether your child received an appropriate education depended on the luck of where you lived, how much money you had, and how hard you were willing to fight.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was passed in 1975 because leaving it up to the states wasn't working. Fifty years later, we're about to find out if we learned anything from that history.
Spoiler alert: We probably didn't.
The author is available for IEP meetings, existential conversations about education policy, and strong drinks. Not necessarily in that order.
