Jon Valant:

So when people talk about eliminating the Department of Education, it’s important to ask what they mean.

And when they talk about that, about eliminating the department and eliminating all the programs that the department administers, that would be catastrophic for all types of student populations. Students with disabilities are certainly one of them. They receive legal protection and they receive resources.

Students living in poverty are another. They get resources they really need. The Trump administration can’t just come in and do that. And in fact, these programs are codified in legislation that predates the Department of Education. Part of the reason we have a Department of Education is because they administer those programs, and we ended up with a lot of programs that we needed someone to administer.

So it would be absolutely catastrophic if we went that way. I’m very skeptical, not only because there would be a Democratic opposition, but students with disabilities and students in poverty don’t just live in blue states and blue areas. They live all over the country.

And there are many Republican members of Congress who are very sensitive to the impact such a move would have on their own constituents.