May 22, 2026

Ross Santy
Chief Data Officer
Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20202

RE: ED-2026-SCC-0661-0001

Submitted via regulations.gov

Dear Mr. Santy,

We, the undersigned education and civil rights advocacy organizations, write to offer the following recommendations to the Department of Education’s (the Department) Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) regarding proposed changes to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part B State Performance Plan (SPP) and Annual Performance Report (APR). These recommendations are aligned with previous letters on significant disproportionality in special education, in which we state that “our organizations have a longstanding commitment to robust enforcement of our nation’s civil and education laws that ensure educational access and opportunity for students with disabilities, students of color, and students from other underserved groups.”^[1]

Significant disproportionality refers to disparities based on race or ethnicity in the identification of children with disabilities for special education, the placement in particular educational settings (i.e., more restrictive ones), and discipline (including suspension and expulsion). According to the most recent data provided to Congress, the Department reports that when compared to all students with disabilities, Black students are more likely to be identified with an intellectual disability^[2] and are twice as likely to be expelled and four times more likely to be suspended.^[3] In addition, more than 33% of Black students with disabilities spend the majority of their time in a separate class.^[4] Many of the undersigned organizations opposed the Department’s prior proposal to remove the significant disproportionality data collection under IDEA Section 618(d) and 34 CFR 300.646 and 300.647 from Section V of the Annual State Application under Part B of IDEA.^[5] As the following comments indicate, we are particularly concerned with and in opposition to the elimination of Indicators 4A, 4B, 10, and the revision to Indicator 9 in the proposed changes to IDEA Part B State Performance Plan (SPP) and Annual Performance Report (APR).

Indicators 4A and 4B: Suspension/Expulsion of All Children with IEPs, Suspension/Expulsion by Race/Ethnicity.

We oppose the elimination of Indicators 4A and 4B. Removing these reporting requirements will severely hinder the Department’s ability to perform its oversight function, as required by IDEA, and eliminate important data from the SPP/APR.

The Department’s proposal to stop requiring States to include Indicators 4A and 4B in the SPP/APR would sabotage the Department’s ability to fulfill its oversight and monitoring role required in IDEA, including the States’ requirement to “examine whether there are significant discrepancies among Local Education Agencies (LEAs) in the State or compare the rates of long-term suspensions and expulsions of children with disabilities to those rates for non-disabled children within the LEAs.”^[6] More specifically, with the removal of these indicators, states would no longer be required to set targets for compliance, which conflicts with IDEA’s requirements and makes children with disabilities—whose ethnicity or race is not White— completely invisible in the data. Since 2005, IDEA has specified three required monitoring priorities in the SPP/APR, including: 1) provision of free, appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment; 2) state exercise of general supervisory authority which includes Child Find, monitoring, use of resolution session, mediation, voluntary binding arbitration, and a system of transition services; and 3) disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in special education, to the extent the representation is the result of inappropriate identification.

The statute also makes clear that the Secretary of Education (Secretary) is required to do two things: 1) monitor states; and 2) require states to monitor local education agencies (LEA)”…using quantifiable indicators…to adequately measure these priorities.”^[7] This instruction from Congress to the Secretary is explicit and does not mean that only states are required to monitor disproportionate representation and whether disproportionality exists in the suspension and expulsion of students. Additionally, the Department argues that access to data under the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) is an adequate proxy for this data.^[8] However, not all schools submit data to the CRDC,^[9] there is no requirement to submit and disaggregate data (for IDEA-eligible children) by disability category, and the Department has currently closed the CRDC collection system with a note that pending collection is “tentative.”^[10]

Given the specificity of the statute and the longstanding recognition that states must support LEAs in identifying and addressing the disproportionate representation of students with disabilities, it is unconscionable that—after more than 20 years of monitoring state compliance and requiring compliance targets under Indicators 4A and 4B—the Secretary and the Department are now attempting to eliminate these critical indicators. Doing so would render the status of these children meaningless and would also eliminate access to the comparative data within the SPP/APR that parents, advocates, educators, researchers, and policymakers rely upon to improve outcomes for students with disabilities.

Indicator 9: Percent of districts with disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in special education and related services that is the result of inappropriate identification.

We oppose the removal of reporting requirements in the current SPP/APR, including the state definition of disproportionate representation and the number of districts that met the state-set N (cell) size for one or more racial/ethnic groups in special education. In doing so, the Department will severely hinder its ability to perform its oversight function, as required by IDEA, and will also remove data from the SPP/APR.

As noted in the discussion of Indicators 4A and 4B, IDEA requires States to identify LEAs with “disproportionate representation” of racial and ethnic groups in special education and related services “that is the result of inappropriate identification,” and also requires the Secretary to monitor states. By removing these requirements, which include eliminating a requirement for states to monitor LEA adherence to state-set policies, all but ensures that the status of these children will no longer receive the attention of schools, districts, and the state. Again, the Department is abandoning the responsibility given by Congress and, through this action, also deprives the Department of information that will help the OSEP analyze state monitoring of IDEA, as well as the ongoing impact of the Equity in IDEA regulations.

Indicator 10: Percent of districts with disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in specific disability categories that is the result of inappropriate identification.

We oppose the elimination of Indicator 10. Removing these reporting requirements will severely hinder the Department’s ability to perform its oversight function as required by IDEA and remove important data from the SPP/APR. Our comments regarding the elimination of Indicators 4A and 4B are the basis for our recommendation to also maintain Indicator 10. The proposal to eliminate reporting of Disproportionate Representation also stands in direct conflict with the requirements of IDEA, as well as more than 20 years of practice in the SPP/APR. Copious research,^[11] as well as the most recent data from the IDEA 2024 child count, makes clear that there is disproportionate representation by race/ethnicity in special education identification. Given that Indicator 9 does not provide sufficient detail to address this issue, Indicator 10 must not be eliminated.

Our organizations appreciate this opportunity to provide comments and recommendations to OSEP. The Education Law Center, Research for Action, and Center for Outcomes Based Research recently published an evidence review^[12] that should serve as a warning to the Department, highlighting that historical evidence demonstrates that when federal enforcement is permissive, state monitoring systems often fail to identify districts with significant disproportionality and require limited corrective action, even when racial inequities in identification, placement, and discipline persist. We remain very concerned that these proposals not only go against decades of research, but will also have negative impacts on discriminatory practices across our schools.

Sincerely,

All4Ed
EdTrust
National Center for Learning Disabilities
National Parents Union

Notes

^[1] See: https://edtrust.org/press-room/joint-comment-opposing-the-departments-proposal-to-remove-the-significant-disproportionality-data-collection/

^[2] U.S. Department of Education, EDFacts Data Warehouse (EDW): “IDEA Part B Child Count and Educational Environments Collection,” 2021-22, https://data.ed.gov/dataset/71ca7d0c-a161-4abe-9e2b-4e68ffb1061a/resource/22294e78-ff8b-48cf-8f5e-5a84f183ec22/download/bchildcountandedenvironment2021-22.csv

^[3] Table 233.28. Percentage of students receiving selected disciplinary actions in public elementary and secondary schools, by type of disciplinary action, disability status, sex, and race/ethnicity: School year 2020-21, Digest of Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_233.28.asp?current=yes

^[4] Separate class refers to a special education program in a class that includes less than 50 percent children without disabilities. See: 46th Annual Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, U.S. Department of Education, (2024), 37. https://sites.ed.gov/idea/2024-annual-report-to-congress-on-the-individuals-with-disabilities-education-act-idea/

^[5] See: https://edtrust.org/press-room/joint-comment-opposing-the-departments-proposal-to-remove-the-significant-disproportionality-data-collection-requirements/

^[6] 20 U.S.C §1416(a)(3), and §616(a)(3), §612(a)(22), and 81 FR 92376

^[7]  20 U.S.C §1416(a)(3), and §616(a)(3)

^[8] See: Docket No.: ED-2026-SCC-0661, Proposed Revisions to FFY 2026-FFY 2031 Part B SPP/APR: Explanation and Rationale (revised March 2026),  Indicator 4B: Suspension/Expulsion Race/Ethnicity, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/03/23/2026-05617/agency-information-collection-activities-comment-request-idea-part-b-state-performance-plan-spp-and

^[9] In 2020-21, the U.S. Department of Education reported that some data was “suppressed or missing” due to certain schools, and that “Tribal schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) and schools in U.S. territories (except Puerto Rico) are generally not required to participate.” These schools are required to participate in the SPP/APR process as recipients of IDEA funds. See: https://www.bie.edu/DPA/SpecialEducation and https://sites.ed.gov/idea/spp-apr-letters

^[10] See: https://crdc.communities.ed.gov/

^[11] Turner, A., & Jackson, C. (2026, April). Federal oversight of racial disproportionality in special education: A rapid evidence review. Research for Action & Center for Outcomes Based Research. https://edlawcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/IDEA-Racial-Disproportionality.pdf

^[12] Ibid