The annual federal budget debate rarely feels urgent to families managing the day-to-day realities of raising a child with a disability. But the 2026 budget proposals, and the congressional fight that has followed, touch the specific law that funds your child's IEP, the staff who enforce it, and the agency that backs you up when schools don't comply.

Here's what's actually being proposed, what's been rejected, and what it means for your family.

The Proposal

The White House proposed a $12.35 billion reduction in Department of Education spending for fiscal year 2026. For special education specifically, the plan would consolidate several targeted programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) into a single block grant. The separate allocations that currently fund early intervention for infants and toddlers, family support resources, assistive technology, and professional development would all flow through one funding stream instead.

The administration has framed this as an increase: the core IDEA Grants to States program would receive $14.9 billion under the proposal, roughly $677 million more than in 2025 and the highest level ever appropriated. Officials have described it as protection, not a cut.

Critics read it differently. The problem isn't the total. It's that consolidation removes the guarantee that each program gets funded at all. With 50 states and widely varying levels of administrative capacity, how that money gets divided would vary considerably. Wealthier, better-staffed state agencies would likely direct it more effectively than under-resourced ones. That gap already exists; the consolidation model would widen it.

What Congress Did

The Senate Appropriations Committee, working across party lines, rejected nearly all of the consolidation proposals. Funding levels for existing IDEA programs were largely preserved through the fiscal year 2026 process.

That's not the end of the story. The broader structural debate continues. The current administration has indicated interest in moving the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services. Advocates argue this would sever special education oversight from general education, weakening the coordination that makes IDEA effective in practice. HHS does not have the institutional history or infrastructure to enforce FAPE requirements the way OSEP has.

OSEP has also experienced significant staff reductions over the past year as part of broader federal workforce cuts. Fewer staff means fewer compliance audits, fewer investigations of district violations, and less federal pressure on schools that fall short of their IDEA obligations.

The Underlying Gap

IDEA was written in 1975 with the expectation that the federal government would cover 40 percent of the average per-pupil cost of special education. That target has never been met. The federal share today sits at roughly 14.7 percent, leaving a gap estimated at $24 billion annually that states and local districts must cover from their own budgets.

This is the context in which the current fight is happening. Federal dollars matter not just for the amount, but for what comes with them: compliance requirements, audit mechanisms, and parental rights to dispute disputes at the federal level. Reduce the oversight infrastructure, and those rights become harder to enforce in practice, even if the law itself hasn't changed.

What Parents Can Do Right Now

The most durable thing you can do in an uncertain policy environment is build a strong paper record. If your child is not receiving services written into their IEP, document it in writing to the school. If you request an evaluation or a service change, make that request in writing. Written requests create timelines and obligations that verbal ones don't.

If you want to participate in the policy debate, your Congressional representatives are the right contact, specifically members of the Senate and House education committees. The National Center for Learning Disabilities, the Arc, and the National Education Association have active IDEA advocacy campaigns that families can join directly.

The core protections in IDEA (a free appropriate public education, an individualized plan, and parental rights to dispute disagreements) remain federal law. What's at stake in the current debate is enforcement capacity, funding adequacy, and whether the systems that back those protections remain intact.

Staying informed and keeping your own records is the practical response to that uncertainty.