Under the guise of eliminating paperwork, the administration has also proposed requiring states to report less data, which would make it more difficult to hold school districts to account. States would no longer have to report the percentage of school districts that have a disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in special education. They would also not be required to report on the timeliness of their evaluation and implementation of services or whether young children are receiving early-intervention services before kindergarten. Students like Annie Morey who are shut out of special education would go uncounted as well.

“The Trump administration’s actions amount to an attack on civil rights, an attack on students with disabilities, and an attack therefore on parents,” said Denise Marshall, the CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a national organization that advocates for students with disabilities. “A lot of it is done through gaslighting. They are trying to convince families that they are honoring the rights of parents and people with disabilities. But when you put those messages beside their actions, they don’t line up.”

Moving the IDEA’s oversight to Health and Human Services technically requires Congress to change the law. But if President Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon succeed in dismantling the Department of Education—in other words, if Congress fails to intervene—the burden of holding school districts to account will fall increasingly on the shoulders of parents like the Moreys, who will be forced to make substantial financial and personal sacrifices to try to get their kids the education that the law guarantees. Parents who are unable to make those sacrifices—because they do not have the financial resources or time to fight for the education their children deserve, or the means to put their children in private schools—may see their children slip even further behind their peers.

Since their ordeal began, the Moreys have spent about $20,000 on legal representation. And the family’s education expenses have jumped significantly: Not long after the district denied services to Annie, Spencer and Courtney pulled their oldest child, Wells, from the Aledo ISD and enrolled him in a private school. They now pay a total of $18,000 a year for their two school-age children.

The Moreys are aware that their family is in a privileged financial position. One reason they have chosen to fight the school district is that they believe Annie’s case might be able to change things for families without the same financial resources. Still, the appeals process has taken a toll on the family, especially on Courtney, who has been the lead advocate for Annie.

I drove to the Moreys’ home in Aledo for dinner the evening after we picked up Annie from preschool. On the highway from Fort Worth, I sped past rusty entrances to cattle ranches, the wrought-iron fences of gated communities, and signs announcing new subdivisions with homes averaging around $540,000 that offer “Everything under the sun.” Spencer greeted me in the driveway in khaki shorts and flip-flops. Over aluminum trays of barbecued meat and beans from a nearby restaurant, he admitted, “For three years, it’s been this draining conflict. I’ve watched how much energy it has taken from her.” In addition to pursuing the legal case, Courtney started the Annie Louise Foundation with another mother to help other parents who have young children with complex medical needs. But the Moreys’ decision to confront the district hasn’t always sat well with their neighbors.

Courtney has spoken out against the Aledo ISD at school-board meetings and on social media, making it clear she believes that the district is discriminating against her daughter and other children with disabilities. “Depending on who you are, we are either the most loved or the most hated family in Aledo,” Courtney joked as she tried to soothe Annie, who found the barbecue too spicy. One acquaintance texted her after a school-board meeting to tell her to be quiet, otherwise their property values would go down.

It might seem like the Moreys stubbornly refused to agree to some harmless evaluation for Annie, but IQ tests have historically been used to justify the low expectations for and segregation of students with intellectual disabilities. In 1910, the psychologist and eugenicist Henry Goddard declared the need for special-education classrooms to prevent the “feeble-minded” from contaminating regular classrooms and wasting the time of teachers and more promising pupils. Goddard believed that students ought to be grouped in separate classrooms according to their IQ. “Society is facing a tremendous problem in this high-grade feeble-minded child,” he warned.

For decades, IQ tests have offered an efficient and convincing way to determine where students belong. They consist of a series of subtests, like fitting shapes into corresponding cutouts on a form board and stringing a set of beads into a prescribed sequential pattern. Such tests provide indications of abstract skills like working memory, pattern recognition, and processing speed—all attributes that make people efficient and productive workers in the corporate world.

More recently, psychologists have begun to acknowledge the roots of IQ tests in eugenics, and evaluations for special education have moved away from depending exclusively on quantitative assessment. As Robert Schalock, a psychologist and former president of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, once told me, the IQ test “doesn’t have a lot to do with preparing a meal.” Now psychologists and diagnosticians like Schalock rely more on lived experience: how people interact socially and accomplish basic tasks to get their needs met.

In the IDEA, IQ testing is mentioned only once. The law emphasizes that evaluation should focus on identifying the individual needs of a student and not simply rely on an IQ score. Despite the IDEA’s guidance, many schools in the United States still use IQ tests to justify placing students with disabilities in segregated classrooms. The Aledo ISD maintains that if it had done what the Moreys wanted, it would have failed to complete the legally required full individual evaluation.

But the Moreys’ case isn’t really about the basis of IQ tests in eugenics or whether they’re an appropriate measure of the potential of a 3-year-old. The case presented to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals addresses whether the Aledo ISD refused to allow the Moreys to participate meaningfully in the evaluation process. On March 30, during the oral hearing in front of the court, the Moreys’ lawyer, Sarah Warburg-Koechlin—a senior associate with the firm King and Spalding who also has a child with Down syndrome—argued that they gave consent for Annie to be tested for qualification for special-education services, just not for the IQ tests that the district demands. Further, nowhere in the IDEA is consent defined. The school district’s position, according to court documents—that since Annie has not yet been determined to be eligible for services, parental input is not required at this point—prioritizes its own authority over the parental involvement that the IDEA seeks to encourage. But is it really consent if the parents are forced to agree to an IQ test or lose services for their child?

Until the federal government acted, children with disabilities rarely had access to formal education. When the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1975, only one in five children with disabilities were educated in America’s schools. Some states had laws that explicitly denied a public education to children whom schools deemed “uneducable,” often using IQ tests to do so. Many of those children spent their lives in institutions. Others were home-schooled or received very little formal education. Because there was no legal mandate to educate students with disabilities, parents went door-to-door searching for schools that might magnanimously enroll their child.

The Education for All Handicapped Children Act improved the lives of generations of students, largely thanks to its mandate that children ages 3 to 21 with any form of disability receive a free public education and be taught alongside children without disabilities “to the maximum extent appropriate.” Today, 8 million public-school students are served by the legislation, which was renamed the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act in 1990.

The IDEA states that parents should have “meaningful opportunities to participate in the education of their children at school and at home.” But as Annie’s case demonstrates, school districts are not always inclined to seek or follow the parents’ input.

Once students are deemed eligible for special-education services, schools are required to invite their parents to an IEP meeting at least once a year to decide on which services—such as speech or occupational therapy—the students should receive as well as where and how often they will. When I was conducting research for my book A Measure of Intelligence: One Mother’s Reckoning With the IQ Test, I talked with dozens of parents around the country who told me how the goals and expectations described in an IEP are kept frustratingly low. For example, an IEP is supposed to modify the way grade-level instruction is given and provide accommodations so that students with disabilities can access the general-education curriculum. In 2004, in fact, Congress amended the IDEA to acknowledge that 30 years of research and experience have demonstrated that the education of students with disabilities is most effective when schools have high expectations and ensure access to the curriculum. But schools do not consistently operate in this spirit. In 2022, only about two-thirds of students with disabilities spent 80 percent or more of the school day in a general-education setting. Some students’ time outside the classroom might involve 45 minutes per week with a speech therapist or an hour each afternoon with a behavioral specialist. But for students who need more support, the statistics are far worse. Only about 20 percent of students with intellectual disabilities learn in general-education settings for more than 80 percent of the school day, a statistic that has remained stagnant for decades. Most spend their day in segregated special-education classrooms. This could be for a number of reasons—including budget constraints, lack of staffing, complex student needs, or entrenched bias about where students with disabilities belong—depending on the school district and the state.

However, these placements can have far-reaching consequences. Most concerning, students in segregated classes in some states rarely have the opportunity to earn a high-school diploma. They might leave with a certificate of completion, but many are unprepared for employment, higher education, or meaningful involvement in their communities. In other words, they are being set up to maintain the low expectations for people with disabilities that our society has internalized for more than 100 years. Some parents believe that this cycle—a lack of opportunity that shapes low expectations and justifies segregation—will never change unless school districts are more strongly incentivized to comply with the IDEA.

I met Carol Caron for breakfast in one of the outdoor malls that line the Aledo highway after my day with the Moreys. She wore a flowing green cotton dress with a bold pattern, her graying hair pulled back with a clip. Like the Moreys, Carol and her family chose to settle in Aledo because of its reputation for high-achieving academics. Carol’s daughter, Ellie, who also has Down syndrome, had been included in a mainstream classroom at her previous school in Kansas City. Before the Moreys moved back to Texas, Aledo administrators assured Carol that the district practiced inclusion and educated students like Ellie alongside their peers. “They talk about inclusion and high expectations for all students,” Carol told me in her no-nonsense Texas accent. “What families experience in practice is often very different.”

When she registered Ellie at her new school, Carol assumed that her daughter would be placed in a general-education classroom. But she slowly began to realize that what the district called “inclusion” often felt superficial. Ellie was physically present with her peers for portions of the school day, but she was frequently excluded from the academic instruction taking place around her. She did not consistently receive modified grade-level work or meaningful access to the curriculum. Most of her academic instruction took place in a separate classroom and was not aligned with what her grade-level peers were learning.

Carol brought binders of information and research to the IEP meetings to convince the Aledo ISD officials of the academic and social benefits of inclusion. But the district ultimately decided that Ellie should learn in a “functional academic” classroom, or a more restricted environment that focuses on skills, like hand-washing and toileting, that she had long since mastered.

When Ellie was in second grade, the district removed her from the diploma track and insisted that she be taught with an alternative curriculum. As a result, Ellie would not be given the opportunity to work toward a traditional high-school diploma.

Carol filed a complaint with the Texas Education Agency alleging that the school’s decision did not accurately reflect Ellie’s true academic potential. The TEA validated Carol’s complaint and required the Aledo ISD to review its process for qualifying students for the alternative test. But even after the TEA concluded that Ellie did not qualify for the alternative state assessment, the district continued to deny her meaningful access to the general classroom. The agency also found violations affecting 13 additional students in the district in a separate complaint.

In a written statement, the district asserts that “it is a privilege to serve our Bearcats who have special needs and to work in partnership with their parents to ensure that the services they receive are specifically tailored to their needs and are appropriate under the law.” The district added that it “values and supports parents’ advocating for their children,” including through a lawsuit.

Despite her efforts, Carol began to understand what Ellie’s future would look like if she kept her daughter in the Aledo ISD. She chose to focus instead on securing the instruction and opportunities she believed that Ellie deserved by enrolling her in a private school for kids with intellectual and developmental disabilities. But as with the Moreys, there is a downside to this solution. Private schools are not required to follow IEPs or any other policies of special education mandated by the IDEA. There is little recourse—such as due-process hearings—for parents if they believe that a school’s practices or policies are discriminatory. And Carol’s choice sacrifices a consequential goal of the IDEA: Ellie is still not learning alongside her nondisabled peers. But according to Carol, Ellie is making up for lost time academically. Her reading skills have advanced steadily, and she has learned basic math concepts that were not emphasized in her former classroom. “The growth was not the result of a sudden change in Ellie’s abilities,” Carol told me. “It was the result of finally being given the opportunity to learn.” The progress reinforced what Carol had believed all along: that her daughter’s potential could not be determined by a label, a test score, or a school district’s assumptions about what students with intellectual disabilities are capable of achieving.

Nationwide, the volume of IDEA-based dispute resolutions, including written complaints, mediations, and due-process hearings, has increased significantly in the past decade. A database maintained by the Center for Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Special Education (CADRE) indicates a 71.6 percent increase in cases from the 2012–13 to the 2022–23 school years. According to the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, the overall increase in disputes might be a result of an increase in awareness among families of their rights under the IDEA, or an increase in academic expectations for all students, or cost-cutting initiatives by school districts. Despite the increase, due-
process hearings are still relatively rare. In 2025, 38 due-process claims raising IDEA violations were presented to hearing officers in Texas. Seventy-three percent of those claims were denied.

Roy Atwood is a Dallas attorney who represented the Moreys and the Carons in their due-process complaints against the Aledo ISD. He consistently hears from families who are considering taking legal action against their schools because of alleged IDEA violations. Atwood, who has an adult son with Down syndrome, has helped many families resolve disputes with school districts out of court.

Hearing officers give the benefit of the doubt to the school district, and the burden is on those filing the complaint to prove their case. Atwood explained that parents are often viewed by the adjudication system as wanting something special for their child, making unreasonable demands on a school district. “To hearing officers, due-process complaints often come across as whining,” Atwood said.

But the Moreys’ case was different. It was, in Atwood’s words, “a rifle shot, not a shotgun blast,” meaning that it was a straightforward, one-issue case rather than a list of grievances. Atwood also took Annie’s age into consideration. Litigation against school districts takes years to resolve, and by that time a student can be close to aging out of the public-school system. Because Annie was only 3, she could have benefited if the hearing officer had found in her favor.

But Aledo dug its heels in. The district’s intransigence might be due in part to the pressures of managing resources and finances for a rapidly developing suburban district and maintaining its reputation as being worth the price that parents pay in terms of property taxes and home values. The Aledo ISD noted in its statement to The Nation that it gave a large salary increase (6 to 12.5 percent) to all teachers, but especially its special-education staff, in 2025–26 to recruit and retain “the best special education teachers and staff to serve our students.” But the more our public schools value markers of achievement—test scores, AP classes, and college-admission rates—above all else, the more students like Annie and Ellie will be segregated and ignored. The predicament of parents like the Moreys and the Carons in 2026 bears a striking similarity to what many parents faced before the IDEA became law.

In his ruling in the Moreys’ due-process appeal in district court, the judge mentioned a case much like theirs, in which one of his colleagues affirmed that “raising a child with Down Syndrome is unquestionably a tremendous burden,” and then commended the Moreys “for their compassionate practical involvement.” Yet the Moreys have never asked for pity; they’ve never seen a reason to. But if Trump succeeds in fully dismantling the Department of Education and federal oversight of the IDEA, it is possible that the future of special education will take the form of the discrimination of the past.