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Open Recommendations (57 total)

K-12 Education: Differences in Student Arrest Rates Widen when Race, Gender, and Disability Status Overlap

GAO-24-106294
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2 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of the Office for Civil Rights clearly communicate any future changes to data on arrests and referrals to law enforcement in the Civil Rights Data Collection before the start of the school year for which districts are to collect data. (Recommendation 3)
Open
Education agreed with this recommendation. We will monitor their efforts to clearly communicate any future changes to data on arrests and referrals to law enforcement in the Civil Rights Data Collection before the start of the school year for which districts are to collect data.
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of the Office for Civil Rights revise the Civil Rights Data Collection to collect arrest and referral data, by race, for students with disabilities served under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended. (Recommendation 1)
Open
Education agreed with this recommendation. The agency said it would reconsider collecting data on students receiving services under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, disaggregated by race when it seeks approval and obtains stakeholder feedback for the 2025-2026 data collection. We will monitor the progress of this effort.

K-12 Education: Differences in Student Arrest Rates Widen when Race, Gender, and Disability Status Overlap

GAO-24-106294
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of the Office for Civil Rights take necessary steps to disclose the known limitation in its arrest data for the 2021–2022 school year Civil Rights Data Collection. This could include, for example, confirming and disclosing which definitions school districts used or noting that arrest data for that year is not comparable among districts. (Recommendation 2)
Open
Education agreed with this recommendation. We will monitor the agency's efforts to disclose the known limitation in its arrest data for the 2021-2022 school year Civil Rights Data Collection.

Higher Education: Education Could Improve Information on Accommodations for Students with Disabilities

GAO-24-105614
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should encourage state and local educational agencies to disseminate resources to assist IEP teams in informing students with disabilities who are considering postsecondary education about the importance of self-advocacy in obtaining accommodations in college. (Recommendation 1)
Open
Education agreed with the spirit and purpose of this recommendation and said that it is prepared to encourage state and local educational agencies to inform students with disabilities who are transitioning from high school about the importance of self-advocacy as they consider postsecondary education. We will monitor the agency's progress in implementing the recommendation.

Higher Education: Education Could Improve Information on Accommodations for Students with Disabilities

GAO-24-105614
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should ensure that the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights provides DSO staff a way to receive electronic notification of newly issued guidance and other information related to accommodations for students with disabilities in higher education, similar to its existing notifications on other education-related topics. (Recommendation 2)
Open
Education agreed with this recommendation and identified plans to create an opt-in email distribution list about guidance and other information related to accommodations for students with disabilities in higher education. We will monitor the progress of this and any additional efforts regarding electronic notification.

College Athletics: Education Should Improve Its Title IX Enforcement Efforts

GAO-24-105994
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3 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should ensure that the Office for Civil Rights regularly analyzes available Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act data and expands its use of the data for oversight activities, consistent with available resources. (Recommendation 1)
Open
Education agreed with this recommendation and stated that it will continue reviewing EADA data in support of enforcement activities, as appropriate, dependent on available staff and other resources. Education provided an example in which it recently relied on EADA data to resolve a case. We agree that EADA data can be helpful in resolving specific cases. However, the intent of our recommendation is for Education to periodically analyze EADA data for more proactive and broader oversight activities, such as the examples we provide in our report. We continue to believe that Education should regularly analyze the EADA data and expand its use for oversight activities, consistent with available resources.
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should ensure that the Office for Civil Rights establishes agency timeliness goals for reviewing monitoring reports and for responding to colleges during monitoring of Title IX athletics cases. (Recommendation 2)
Open
Education neither agreed nor disagreed with this recommendation, stating that it has already implemented it. Specifically, Education cited a provision in its performance plans for investigative staff that staff should routinely determine compliance with respect to submitted monitoring reports within 90 days of receipt, on average. We acknowledge Education's performance standards for investigative staff, but these are not the same as having overall agency timeliness goals and performance. To implement this recommendation, Education should establish overall agency timeliness goals for reviewing monitoring reports and for responding to colleges during monitoring of Title IX athletics cases. Individual staff performance results do not provide an overall picture of agency timeliness.
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should ensure that the Office for Civil Rights requires staff to consistently record due dates in the case management system for responding to colleges' monitoring reports in Title IX athletics cases. Management should use information from the case management system to evaluate response times against established timeliness goals. (Recommendation 3)
Open
Education agreed with this recommendation and said that it would routinely record due dates in the case management system for responding to colleges' Title IX athletics monitoring reports. In addition, Education stated it will also periodically review information from the case management system to evaluate response time frames, as appropriate. We will monitor the progress of these efforts.

Higher Education: Employment Discrimination Case Referrals Between Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Could Be Improved

GAO-24-105516
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education Education should track the number of days it takes regional offices to refer employment discrimination complaints to EEOC and use the information to develop a plan to reduce referral delays. Such a plan could include applying good practices from certain regional offices agency-wide, or reallocating resources. (Recommendation 1)
Open
Education agreed with this recommendation and stated that it will develop a system to track the number of days it takes to refer employment discrimination complaints to EEOC. Education also stated that it will periodically review the new data to identify any effective measures to reduce referral times, and make appropriate changes, depending on available resources. We continue to recommend that Education, in addition to developing the tracking system, use the resulting data and information from the periodic reviews to develop a plan to reduce referral delays. We will monitor the agency's efforts.

Federal Student Loans: Education Should Enhance Reporting on Direct Loan Performance and Risk

GAO-24-106174
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should enhance Education's reporting on its Direct Loan program performance and risk information. Enhanced reporting should include further reporting of sensitivity analyses and other factors, such as performance information, credit risk concentrations, and administrative risks. (Recommendation 1)
Open
Education agreed with this recommendation and stated that the department would assess possible enhancements to reporting on the Direct Loan program performance and risk information. We will monitor the agency's progress.
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