GAO – ��

Students With Disabilities Are Spending More Time in Mainstream Classrooms

Kate Rix — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:30:00 +0000

States have made steady progress including students with disabilities in mainstream classrooms, an independent federal report finds, but lawmakers and advocates worry that headway will be lost as federal special education offices move from the Department of Education to Health and Human Services.

Released this month, the shows the number of students with disabilities spending much of their days in general education classrooms grew by 25% between 2012 and 2024. The largest growth came in the population spending 80% or more of their school days in inclusive settings, in accordance with a federal civil rights law enacted more than 50 years ago.

But the rigorous monitoring and technical assistance provided by the federal Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services are at risk amid severe staff cuts, reduced state visits and the office’s shift to another agency, say lawmakers who requested the report.

“I’m glad this report was delivered, and was heartened to see a significant increase in the number of students with disabilities being placed in general education classrooms for much of their day,” U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, wrote in an email to ��. “But this report makes plain that progress is not being made equally in all places — and that it would be extremely foolish to move oversight over special education programs out of the Department of Education to other agencies that lack the expertise and experience to close those gaps.”

Sens. Kaine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont requested the report as part of a broader examination of where students with disabilities receive their education. In 2025, Kaine was among a group of senators who U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s proposal to shift special education out of the Department of Education as a move that will “reverse decades of progress in how we support students with disabilities and their families.”

On June 16, the move was formalized with . The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment, but in the agreement the agency’s director, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., described the move as a “partnership” that will eliminate bureaucracy, save money and “deliver more effective support for individuals with disabilities and their families.”

Under the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, children with disabilities must be educated alongside their non-disabled peers whenever appropriate. The law aligns with research that shows positive outcomes from inclusive educational practices. A foundational by the National Center on Educational Outcomes found that up to 85% of special education students can meet the same achievement standards as other students if they are given specially designed instruction, access, support and accommodations.

also shows that students with disabilities in inclusive general ed classrooms do better academically and socially, pursue postsecondary education, and are more likely to get a competitive job and live independently.

Disabilities studied in the GAO report include autism, hearing impairment, visual impairments, orthopedic impairments and intellectual impairments among others.

The report shows modest but steady gains in national inclusion rates, but progress was uneven. In 42 states and the District of Columbia the number of students with disabilities spending at least 40% of their time in mainstream classrooms increased, but in North Dakota and Nevada that share of students decreased by about 3%. Inclusion rates also went down in Minnesota, Alabama, Ohio and Georgia over the 12-year period.

Educators in some states pointed to district staffing shortages to explain why some students with disabilities who require an aide have not joined general education peers. Others noted that a school’s success largely depends on its leadership.

“[School culture] is the No. 1 issue,” a school official told GAO investigators. “The [principal] is the most powerful benefit or hindrance to inclusion. Unfortunately, a lot of principals do not have special education background or depth of knowledge in special ed.”

Advocates worry that moving special education services to HHS will erode a core element of the IDEA.

“It’s a very real separation,” said Jennifer Coco, interim executive director of the New York-based Center for Learner Equity. “What will make inclusion happen is setting an expectation that students with disabilities are students first. We start with the presumption that they’re going to be in the general education classrooms being taught by general ed teachers.”

Until this year, the federal Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services has visited and monitored 10 states a year to ensure that the IDEA is being enforced and to offer support and assistance where it is not. Those state visits are expected to drop to two per year, Coco said, which means less insight into how students are being educated and less support at the state and district levels.

“All of the foundational pieces at the federal level that drive the results we see in this report have been dismantled,” she said. The Department of Education’s staff cuts and decision to move special education services is “pulling the rug out from underneath all of us in terms of how we’re going to sustain the progress that this report shows us.”

Advocates are also concerned that by housing special education services in HHS — whose director drew criticism with his that children with autism “will never pay taxes” — will add stigma for students with disabilities.

“It matters who’s overseeing special education,” said Lisa Mosko Barros, founder of the California-based advocacy organization Speducational. “The tone they set matters.” Kennedy’s remarks about people with autism indicate a “mindset that is concerning,” Barros added. “It’s like enlisting the support of a hospital to oversee a school district.”

A Watchdog Says the Feds Aren’t Doing Enough to Investigate Problem Colleges

Adam Goldstein — Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:30:00 +0000

This article was originally published in

WASHINGTON — Incomplete written guidelines and penalties that had not been updated since 2016.

Significant turnover and reductions among staff.

Changing agency priorities and department probes put “on hold.”

Over the past six years, these problems have stifled the U.S. Department of Education’s investigations team that is supposed to probe colleges that misrepresent themselves to the public, according to a recent report by a government watchdog, the . Much of the period studied was during the Trump administration.

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As a result of misrepresentation by colleges, students may have trouble graduating, paying back their loans, or finding a job.

“When planning for college, students and parents should be able to trust that institutions are providing accurate information about their programs and their graduates’ success,” said Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, in a statement.

Colleges or universities that engage in substantial misrepresentation “make certain false or misleading statements — or omissions—about (their) programs, costs, or graduate employment, that students or others could rely on to their detriment,” according to the GAO report.

For example, if a college provides untrue information about the number of graduates that get jobs in their chosen field, the college is engaged in substantial misrepresentation.

How colleges are investigated

Substantial misrepresentation by postsecondary schools is a violation of federal law.

The Department of Education established the Student Aid Enforcement Unit under the Office of Federal Student Aid in 2016 to enforce this regulation.

The unit’s Investigations Group has the authority to investigate and apply fines to colleges that substantially misrepresent themselves to the public, and deny their participation in federal student aid programs — a major blow for almost every institution of higher education.

However, the authors of the report found both the Investigations Group and its parent Student Aid Enforcement Unit had largely been sidelined in misrepresentation investigations over the past six years.

From fiscal years 2016 through 2021, largely under the Trump administration, the Department of Education imposed penalties against 13 universities for substantial misrepresentation.

Of the schools that were penalized, 10 were for-profit universities, two were private nonprofit schools, and one was a public research university. No schools that violated the law were publicly named in the GAO report.

Yet the Investigations Group only had direct involvement in two of the 13 misrepresentation probes noted, a number the authors attributed to “management priorities that had shifted away from investigations.” During this time, investigations were generally led by the School Eligibility and Oversight Service Group, a separate oversight branch also within the Office of Federal Student Aid.

The GAO team further found that all four active investigations being conducted by the Investigations Group were halted by senior management in 2017, the first year of the Trump administration.

From 2018 to 2020, the Investigations Group opened only one investigation into substantial misrepresentation by a college or university.

“Officials we spoke to were not able to explain the reason or provide documentation for the decision to place investigations on hold, but said their understanding was that management priorities had shifted away from conducting investigations,” the GAO report said. “Based on this decision, officials said that the Investigations Group stopped almost all of its investigations work.”

Staffing for the Investigations Group also shrunk significantly over the last six years, from nine staff members in 2017 down to two in 2019. The report found that the team has also had nine acting directors over the past six years, none solely dedicated to the Investigations Group.

The authors also found the Department of Education had not finished writing its own procedures for investigating colleges engaged in substantial misrepresentation, nor had it reviewed its penalty system for violators since 2016.

The department recommended updating these policies during an internal audit in 2019, and set several internal deadlines, but no action was ever taken.

Recent progress

The GAO acknowledged recent progress for the Department of Education in reprioritizing the Investigations Group and newly-organized Office of Enforcement.

The Investigations Unit has hired five new staff and started six new investigations into substantial misrepresentation since early 2021. Still, the GAO recommended that the Department of Education complete its written policies for investigation so it can better target high-risk colleges and apply appropriate penalties.

The Department of Education agreed with these recommendations, and said it will complete policies to help the Investigations Group select, assess and penalize schools that substantially misrepresent themselves to the public.

“We view that work as essential to a well-managed organization equipped to provide the most effective and efficient oversight to protect the investments made by students and taxpayers alike,” said Richard Cordray, chief operating officer of Federal Student Aid, in a written response to the report.

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