Project 2025 wouldn’t eliminate IEPs, but experts still wary of it

Project 2025, the oft-mentioned conservative policy manual, proposes broad changes to the federal government’s role in education. But a widely shared claim that it somehow eliminates the education of students with individualized education programs isn’t quite right.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., worked with over 100 other conservative groups for Project 2025. The result was the “Mandate for Leadership,” a nearly 900-page document with policy proposals that align with the organization’s goal of rescuing the country from the “grip of the radical Left.”
A Facebook post shared by more than 2,000 people says, “7.5 million public school students are in an Individualized Education Program. Project 2025 will eliminate their education.”
Experts say this description overstates the likely impact of Project 2025’s proposals.
The document doesn’t specifically propose eliminating individualized education programs – a document that summarizes a student’s special education needs and lays out goals for the school year. In fact, it doesn’t mention them at all.
But multiple experts told USA TODAY that Project 2025’s proposals could have consequences for students since it would change how funding is distributed and who is responsible for oversight.
“So, while it doesn’t specify doing away with IEPs, it really would result in taking the teeth out of an IEP, so to speak,” said Brian Abery, a researcher at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration.
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The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act entitles students with disabilities to a “free appropriate public education.” Typically, that requires an individualized education program.
The process of identifying and supporting students who need individualized education programs happens at the local level, said Eric Houck, an education professor at the University of North Carolina. But the federal government also has a role, as it defines and monitors that work and provides some funding to states to support those students.
Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” proposes converting most Individuals with Disabilities Education Act funding to a “no-strings formula block grant” distributed to states by the Department of Health and Human Services, not the Department of Education.
Lindsey Burke, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, told USA TODAY that Project 2025 “doesn’t touch IEPs at all.”
“Public schools would still develop and issue IEPs to students who need them, and eligible students would still access their share of (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) funds,” Burke said.
Fact check: Project 2025 is an effort by the Heritage Foundation, not Donald Trump
Abery said the change to block grants would make it possible for those special education funds to be used outside of public schools – at a private school, for instance.
“(Public) schools would have less money to effectively implement IEPs because it would be siphoned off to a certain extent to private schools,” Abery said.
The federal government wouldn’t set any minimum standards for states to receive the funding, hence the “no strings” language, Houck said.
“In this way, it is conceivable that students in some states would be underfunded or even eliminated from funding,” he said.
Project 2025’s section about education policy begins by saying that the “federal Department of Education should be eliminated,” a move that President-elect Donald Trump has said he supports.
The Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services is currently responsible for administering the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. But “Mandate for Leadership” proposes giving that job to the Department of Health and Human Service’s Administration for Community Living.
Related: Will Trump implement Project 2025? What to know about the right-wing policy plan
That isn’t an agency staffed by experts in youth education, Abery said. Instead, its focus is on serving adults with disabilities.
Project 2025 also proposes shifting the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services’ role in supporting laws that protect students with disabilities from discrimination to the Department of Justice and the Office for Civil Rights.
Houck said it’s not unreasonable to imagine “cases falling through the cracks during this transition or being neglected altogether” as the agencies figure out how to manage their new responsibilities.