The Changemaker 6/8/26
When the Reporting Stops, the Harm Doesn't
A federal proposal, the data it would hide, and why it matters now.
The disproportionality reporting requirement and what its removal would mean
On August 22, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education filed a notice under the Paperwork Reduction Act proposing to remove the significant disproportionality reporting requirement (Section V) from the annual application every state submits to receive its IDEA funds. Under federal law, states have been required since 2004 to examine whether children of a particular race or ethnicity are being identified for special education, placed in more restrictive settings, or disciplined more often than their peers. Section V is where a state has to disclose when it changes the method it uses to make those determinations.
The Department's rationale is burden reduction. Its own estimate for the entire annual application — all 60 state and territorial respondents combined — is 180 hours per year. On the other side: 11.4 million school days lost to out-of-school suspension in a single year, falling hardest on Black students, Native students, and students with disabilities.
We don't have to guess what removing oversight produces. Research using federal civil rights data documented those 11.4 million lost school days — and showed that where reporting wasn't enforced, the numbers turned to fiction. More than sixty percent of the country's largest districts reported zero school-related arrests. Weak requirements didn't reveal a problem solved. They hid one that was never addressed.
When the Department moved to delay these same equity protections in the last decade, advocates challenged it in federal court and prevailed. The disparities didn't disappear in the years it was contested. They simply went unmeasured.
A right that cannot be monitored is a right in name
This proposal does not repeal a single right in IDEA. It removes the ability to see whether those rights are being honored for students — disproportionately children of color and children with disabilities — whose protections exist because the system has harmed them before when no one was watching.
What you can do
In your own system, the work doesn't wait on Washington. Your obligation under IDEA does not change. Keep running your own disproportionality analysis. Write down your methodology — your thresholds, your reasoning — so your board and families can follow it even if no federal reviewer ever asks.
Add your voice while it still counts. The rule change is still only a proposal. Special education leaders hold standing on this question that almost no one else does.
A first-year principal asks: how do I change the culture, not just correct the behavior?
He noticed general education teachers talking about students with IEPs in ways that concerned him, students with disabilities isolated at lunch and in hallways, and staff saying "that's a SpEd problem" when a student had a hard day. He didn't always know how to respond in ways that changed the culture rather than just corrected the behavior.
Dr. Grimwood Responds
The phrase "that's a SpEd problem" is one of the most damaging sentences in any school building. It signals that inclusion is a policy the school follows, not a value the school holds. You cannot fix it with a professional development session or a policy memo. You fix it with your daily behavior as a principal.
Be present in resource rooms, co-taught classrooms, and small group settings with the same investment you bring to any other classroom. When you hear "that's a SpEd problem," respond directly: "This is our student and our problem to solve together."
The fact that you are ending your first year by asking this question, honestly and with this much self-awareness, is one of the most important things you could do for the students in your building. Year two is going to look very different.
Former Special Education Dispute Resolution Coordinator, Kansas State Dept. of Education
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