TEACHER EDUCATION DIVISION | COUNCIL FOR EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN
Washington Update
June 2026
Dear Colleagues:
Earlier this week the numbers for our priorities were still sealed in the Committee Report, and I asked you to be ready rather than draw conclusions. The report is now public. On Tuesday, June 9, the full House Appropriations Committee marked up the FY 2027 Labor-HHS-Education bill and reported it out, 34–28, on party lines. We now have program-by-program figures.
The short version: three of our four priorities held flat, the House kept the IDEA discretionary programs as distinct lines instead of a block grant, and special education came through essentially whole. The one clear loss is the Teacher Quality Partnership, eliminated again. This is still the House’s opening move, with the Senate to come, but it is a far better starting point than the request gave us, and the structural threats we worried about most did not materialize.
1. The Headline for TED: Three of Four Priorities Held
IDEA Personnel Preparation, the Part D line that funds the people who prepare special educators, is funded at $115 million, level with FY 2026, and it keeps its own dedicated line. The request would have swept Personnel Preparation and six sibling programs into a consolidated Part B grant; the House did not. The program survives this round in both dollars and structure.
Hawkins Centers of Excellence: held at $15 million, after a request that would have zeroed them. NCSER, which the request would have cut from $64 million to $10 million, instead holds at $64 million, a near-total cut averted. The pattern repeats across the rest of Part D: State Personnel Development, Technical Assistance, Parent Centers, and Educational Technology/Media are all level with FY 2026, every one of which the request proposed to eliminate.
The exception is the Teacher Quality Partnership, and it is the one answer we did not want: the bill eliminates TQP, zeroing its $70 million. More on why that fight isn’t over below. First, the full picture.
TED Priority Programs at a Glance
TED’s four priorities are shaded and listed first; green marks a House level held or restored, amber marks an elimination. Figures are from the Committee Report accompanying the FY 2027 House Labor-HHS-Education bill and CEF’s updated table (June 9, 2026).
Program | FY 2026 Enacted | President FY 2027 | House Subcmte. FY 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| IDEA Personnel Preparation (Part D) | $115M | Consolidated into Part B | $115M held |
| Hawkins Centers of Excellence | $15M | $0 (eliminated) | $15M held |
| Research in Special Ed (NCSER) | $64M | $10M | $64M held |
| Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) | $70M | $0 (eliminated) | $0 eliminated |
| Special Education (total account) | $15.49B | $16.03B | $15.54B (+$46M) |
| IDEA State Personnel Development | $39M | $0 | $39M held |
| IDEA Parent Information Centers | $33M | $0 | $33M held |
| Special Ed Studies & Evaluations | $13M | $2M | $0 eliminated |
| Institute of Education Sciences (total) | $765M | $261M | $493M (-36%) |
2. The Structural Win: No Consolidation, No Reorganization Codified
The dollar levels are good; the structural decision underneath them may matter more. The Committee Report declines to enact the President’s reorganization. It notes the authorizing committees haven’t yet weighed the reorganization proposals, so the bill makes no significant changes to how the agencies are structured.
That one decision does a lot for us. It keeps Personnel Preparation and the other Part D programs as distinct lines, not dollars buried in a block grant. It declines, for now, to lock in the interagency agreements that would move programs out of the Department. The request’s consolidation of seven IDEA programs into a revised state grant simply isn’t in the House bill. None of it is permanent, and the Senate could revisit it. But the House chose continuity over restructuring, and continuity favors our programs.
3. The One Loss: TQP, and Why It Is Not Over
TQP is eliminated, down from $70 million to zero. It is the only one of our four priorities the bill cuts, and it hits the higher-education end of the educator-preparation pipeline.
The precedent is our best argument, and it’s recent. In FY 2025 the Department ran TQP at about $11 million instead of the $70 million Congress provided; Congress rejected that and restored full funding for FY 2026, with bipartisan support. This is the second attempt at the same outcome, and the first was reversed. The Senate hasn’t written its bill and the chambers haven’t reconciled. Last cycle, that process restored exactly this kind of withheld funding. TQP is the line to name, specifically, as the bill moves.
4. Around the Rest of the Bill
Briefly, the wider picture. The Department is funded at $70.7 billion, about $8.1 billion (10 percent) below FY 2026 and below the President’s own $75.7 billion request. Title I drops to $16.5 billion (down $1.9 billion); Title II-A state grants for educator development are eliminated ($2.19 billion), along with English Language Acquisition, Preschool Development Grants, full-service community schools, and adult education.
On the other side, the House rejected the request’s elimination of TRIO (+$6M) and GEAR UP (+$6M), raised the maximum Pell award $50 to $7,445, added $60 million to charter schools, and put $10 million more each into Head Start and child care. Campus-based aid is cut: Work-Study down 26 percent, SEOG down 40 percent.
The throughline for us is the pairing of TQP and Title II-A: dedicated federal support for the educator workforce is thinned from both the higher-ed and K-12 ends at once, even as the special education account holds and Personnel Preparation survives. Special education protected, educator preparation squeezed. That’s the contrast to carry into the Senate.
5. Grant-Making and Oversight to Watch
A few process items that affect how our programs get funded. The OMB draft grant-making rule, which would give political appointees more say over federal awards, is still live; an amendment to block it failed 29–32. If you compete for discretionary dollars, watch the rule and its open comment window.
The report also adds a standing oversight directive: agencies must brief appropriators every 30 days, through November 30, 2027, on all formula and competitive grants and the NOFOs they’ve issued or plan to, which means more visibility into the timing of Part D competitions. And within IDEA Part B, the bill adds $10 million for technical assistance to cut paperwork (the “Paperwork Reduction Pilot” waiver authority), with legislative language to match. Small, but concrete for special education systems.
6. What’s Next, and What You Can Do
We’ve cleared full committee; we have not cleared Congress. The bill heads to the House floor, the Senate writes its own version, and the chambers reconcile, often inside a larger package. The numbers can move at any step, in either direction.
Where we are in the process
June 4 | June 5 | June 9 | Next | Next | Then |
|---|
How a Funding Bill Becomes Law
- President's request (done). A proposal only, and the starting point. It carries no force of law.
- Subcommittee markup (done). The subcommittee approves its draft bill. These sessions are usually short, with few or no amendments.
- Full committee markup (June 9). The full Appropriations Committee takes up the bill, amendments are typically offered here, and the Committee Report is released with the program-by-program levels. The committee votes to report the bill out.
- House floor. The full House debates, may amend again, and votes to pass its version.
- Senate, on its own track. The Senate runs the same sequence in its committee and on its floor, passing a version that usually differs from the House.
- Reconcile the two. The chambers resolve their differences into a single identical bill, often inside a larger package.
- Final passage and signature. Both chambers pass the same text and the President signs it into law.
The fiscal year begins October 1. If Congress has not finished by then (haha, they absolutely will not), it passes a continuing resolution to hold funding at current levels until it does. The numbers can change at every step, which is why naming our programs to appropriators matters now.
Two asks.
First, the posture shifts from watch to defend: in the Senate, lock in the House’s flat levels for Personnel Preparation, Hawkins, and NCSER, and restore TQP. Second, when you contact your delegation, name the programs (IDEA Personnel Preparation, State Personnel Development, NCSER, Hawkins, TQP) and tie each to something real: a named project, a scholar in your pipeline, a documented shortage. The committee held these lines without hearing those stories. The Senate should hear them.
Closing
On the surface this is a 10 percent cut to the Department, and that is serious. Underneath, the House rejected the block grant, kept our discretionary programs as distinct lines, held three of our four priorities flat, and left special education essentially whole, a far better foundation than the request gave us, while eliminating TQP, the loss we now work to reverse. None of it is final. A request is a proposal; Congress writes the numbers one markup at a time, and the House has shown only its opening hand.
Thank you, as always, for the work you do.
With appreciation,
Kait
Kait Brennan, PhD
Policy Advisor, Teacher Education Division
Council for Exceptional Children
