What Parents Should Know About U.S. Department of Education's Updated Differentiated Monitoring & Support Reports Page
U.S. Department of Education rolled out a revised IDEA Differentiated Monitoring and Support Reports page on ED.gov, featuring an incomplete database.
U.S. Department of Education (ED) rolled out a revised IDEA Differentiated Monitoring and Support (DMS) Reports page on ED.gov. The page features a searchable database that lets you filter by state, program (Part B or Part C), year and document type. It sounds promising, but parents and advocates should know that what’s online today is far from complete.
The Database is Incomplete
Special Education Action has long tracked ED’s oversight reports and immediately noticed big gaps. Records begin in 2018 and earlier years such as 2016 and 2017 are absent. Worse, several states and territories don’t appear at all. For instance, OSEP issued a groundbreaking DMS monitoring report to Texas in 2016, which was followed by years of continued monitoring, yet visitors can’t even select that state in the drop‑down menu. Other states are listed but their histories are truncated. For example, Virginia’s entry shows only 2024 documents, omitting reports from 2020 and 2022. These omissions suggest the database remains a work in progress, but nothing on the page explains that to users.
What is DMS?
ED’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) monitors how each state implements Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Under the DMS system, OSEP reviews each state’s general‑supervision system and issues reports and letters—commonly called DMS reports and status letters—that identify noncompliance, outline corrective actions, and describe areas of progress and/or continue noncompliance.
These documents may be technical, but they matter because they reveal whether a state is meeting its obligations and they often reflect input from parents and advocates.
What Changed in 2024–2026?
In 2024 ED started redesigning its website. Special Education Action previously documented how the overhaul broke links and caused oversight documents to vanish. By early 2025, broken links occupied spaces where federal oversight had lived.
ED’s own 2023 report to Congress under the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act notes that ED plans to remove roughly 100,000 URLs from ED.gov and “has invested in data cleansing activities that will support expedited and effective content migration.” In other words, the agency is actively pruning its web presence even while families are searching for critical oversight records.
Redesigning a Department on the Chopping Block
The redesign didn’t happen in a vacuum. Federal agencies must comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, which require public websites to be accessible to people with disabilities. ED’s accessibility statement says it continually modifies its sites to meet those requirements. In 2024 U.S. Department of Justice issued a final rule clarifying that state and local governments must meet web‑accessibility standards. It’s plausible that the redesign was an attempt to modernize ED’s sprawling web presence and comply with these mandates.
Yet the timing is odd because the Trump administration has been moving to dismantle ED. March 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to abolish ED and the administration has been cutting staff and transferring programs to other agencies. Why invest in a major website overhaul while tearing the agency apart?
Regardless of the motive, the result is a confusing juxtaposition. Families and advocates are asked to navigate a redesigned website for a department that the administration has pledged to abolish.
Why This Matters
Access to oversight documents is disrupted. The 2024 redesign broke links and removed pages. Parents and advocates lost visibility into how their state is performing under IDEA and what corrective actions are required.
The database isn’t complete. Early years are missing, several states aren’t listed at all, and some states show only partial records. Families still can’t access many past reports and must rely on their own archives or the willingness of state officials to share documents. In my neck of the woods, Virginia disputed ED’s 2020 report and later failed to post all subsequent reports—even while touting how well it worked with OSEP. (But I digress…)
Few people are talking about it. To my knowledge, no major news outlets have reported on the disappearance of DMS reports. Without coverage, many families may not even know these oversight documents exist.
Digital copies are unofficial. Even once the database is populated, ED notes that digital reports are for reference only and advises users to request official hard‑copy versions through their state’s Monitoring and State Improvement Planning (MSIP) contact. Anyone who has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with ED knows that “quick” and “timely” are not words often associated with ED’s turnaround times.
How to Stay Informed
Use archived copies. Special Education Action is archiving DMS reports and status letters so families can access them even when ED links are broken.
Check the new ED.gov page regularly. ED may populate the database over time. Until then, the page serves as an official location for future DMS reports.
Contact your state’s MSIP representative. For official hard‑copy reports or for reports not yet posted online, reach out to your state’s MSIP contact as suggested by ED.
File public‑records requests. IDEA and state open‑records laws allow families to request monitoring reports and correspondence. If your state or MSIP contact don’t provide a report, submit a FOIA request or a state‑level public‑records request.
Final Words
The DMS system is a vital part of IDEA’s accountability framework. When ED began modernizing its website it inadvertently hid—or removed—many records that families and advocates rely on. The new DMS reports page is a step toward restoring access and is easier to navigate. But . . .
It still lacks significant data. Until ED fully populates the database and clarifies its plans for modernization, communities must remain vigilant, archiving documents, sharing information, and reminding officials that transparency is essential.