The U.S. Department of Education’s various attempts to stall the implementation of federal regulations created by the Obama administration to address racial disparities in special education has blown up into a civil rights issue that continues to dog Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and team.
For well over a year, DeVos has been blocking the implementation of the law designed to help disabled minority students despite repeated efforts by supporters to force compliance.
Those regulations, established under the 2016 Equity in IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Act), went into effect in January 2017, but states were given until July 2018 to comply with a standardized program for monitoring how districts identified and served minority students with disabilities. Two days before the full implementation deadline, DeVos pulled the plug, citing concerns that the methodology could incentivize racial quotas, leaving states and students in limbo.
View the complete July 9 article by Jillian S. Ambroz on the DC Report website here.