{"id":7681,"date":"2025-03-18T17:49:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T21:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/?p=7681"},"modified":"2025-03-18T17:49:02","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T21:49:02","slug":"report-says-u-s-education-departments-staff-cuts-could-hurt-families-of-children-with-disabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/report-says-u-s-education-departments-staff-cuts-could-hurt-families-of-children-with-disabilities-18032025\/","title":{"rendered":"Report says U.S. Education Department\u2019s staff cuts could hurt families of children with disabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The U.S. Department of Education\u2019s staff cuts have made it increasingly difficult for parents of children with special needs to get access to the department\u2019s staff, with anti-Semitism cases getting a higher priority, according to a report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last week, the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced they had reduced the workforce at the Department of Education in half, including in the Office for Civil Rights, whose employees are charged with assisting children with disabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Linda McMahon, new Secretary of Education, said on Tuesday that the cuts will eliminate \u201cbureaucratic bloat.\u201d &nbsp;\u201cToday\u2019s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education\u2019s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most,\u201d McMahon said in a statement last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Experts, however, argue that these so-called reforms will have an adverse effect on both students and teachers, especially for children with disabilities, according to a report by The Associated Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the Department of Education\u2019s statistics, there are currently 20,000 unresolved education cases, most of which belong to children with disabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The remaining employees have been tasked to prioritize educational cases that fall under the category of anti-Semitism, which further exacerbates the situation for students with disabilities and their parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During his presidential campaign and after coming to office, US President Donald Trump criticized the rampant \u201cwaste, fraud and abuse\u201d across the government and vowed to reduce corruption by removing the parts of government that his administration deems wasteful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf there is waste, fraud and abuse, this administration has now eliminated the very agency that would provide oversight for that,\u201d said attorney Sheria Smith, one of the hundreds of employees fired from the Department of Education\u2019s Office for Civil Rights on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Trump administration\u2019s officials insist the staff reductions will not affect civil rights investigations and the layoffs were \u201cstrategic decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Department of Education&rsquo;s staff cuts have made it increasingly difficult for parents of children with special needs to get access to the department&rsquo;s staff, with anti-Semitism cases getting&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7682,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[42],"class_list":["post-7681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"authors":[{"term_id":42,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"radio-habana-cuba","display_name":"Radio Habana Cuba","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7683,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7681\/revisions\/7683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7681"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=7681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}