Government Accountability Office: DoD Schools Must Do More for Military Special Needs Students
Department of Defense schools serving military families struggle to support children with learning disabilities, according to a congressional watchdog review by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) is a federal school system managed by the U.S. Department of Defense that offers tuition-free pre-K through 12th-grade education for children of military members.
A report titled Improved Oversight Could Help DOD Schools Better Support Students with Literacy and Math Skill Deficits notes a growing need to support Department of Defense Dependent School Education Activity students with special education needs.
The report indicates that special needs students are underserved by the DoD and that, according to the GAO, the number of DODEA students with these needs increased by as much as 29 percent from school years 2018–2019 through 2024–2025.
DoD Schools Must Do More for Military Special Needs Students
The Government Accountability Office found procedural gaps, diagnostic omissions, and training shortfalls in special education across Department of Defense Education Activity facilities, which operate DoD schools overseas and at select CONUS locations.
The GAO report indicates that military children relocate up to nine times between kindergarten and high school graduation, forcing them to re-establish school records, build relationships with new educators, and restart academic assessments with every change of station. These disruptions are tough even in the best of times, let alone during conflict and international unrest.
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Federal Law and the Department of Defense
Under federal standards, the Department of Defense must guarantee eligible children public education tailored to their individual needs. The GAO report found that children who struggle with reading and math are more likely to fall through administrative cracks with such frequent relocations.
As part of the survey, GAO investigators examined student enrollment from 2018 through 2025, conducted field interviews with educators, administrators, and regional leaders, visited 11 base schools across Europe and the Americas, and evaluated survey feedback from 144 parents and caregivers.
The audit exposed problems with how base schools identify and handle struggling learners.
29% More Special Education Students Since 2018
During the 2024 to 2025 school year, students diagnosed with a learning disability made up 27% of children receiving special education services. Five percent of the overall student enrollment had recognized learning disabilities, reflecting a 29% surge in identified cases since 2018.
The GAO report says what it calls “strategic instruction” for students with Special Education needs is meant to remediate so-called skill deficits. Ten percent of defense students received strategic literacy or mathematics help during the 2024 to 2025 school term.
DoDEA Classrooms Without Proper Resources
Auditors found elementary classrooms lacked the correct tools to evaluate students who may need help. Defense educators used screeners only for middle and high school students enrolled in remedial courses, leaving younger pupils undetected.
Other findings included improper handling of applications for Special Education help. The GAO says some schools may have discarded student applications because of incomplete documentation or paperwork errors, without analyzing why those errors occurred. In other cases, bureaucratic backlogs delayed support for months.
Teachers who participated in the survey reported difficulty accessing academic metrics and tests for the children they were assigned to assist. The report notes the DoD school system failed to monitor educator certifications for reading interventions or collect teacher feedback to inform training sessions.
The GAO report outlined eight recommendations to address these shortcomings, including adopting early universal screeners, resolving evaluation backlogs, and ensuring eligible students receive academic support.
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GAO Report Recommendations for the Department of Defense Education Activity
The recommendations, as listed on the GAO official site, are as follows:
- The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the DODEA Director identifies referrals for special education rejected due to poor quality or incomplete information and uses the results to improve the completeness and quality of referrals systemwide.
- The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the DODEA Director analyzes factors within its control contributing to delays in the special education evaluation process and takes appropriate steps to address them.
- The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the DODEA Director clarifies that feedback forms provided to strategic instruction and special education teachers at the end of agency-wide professional learning sessions are designed to gather general feedback on these teachers’ future professional learning needs. They should use this feedback to inform future professional learning offerings.
- The Secretary of Defense should ensure special education teachers who teach students needing specialized reading interventions receive the professional learning needed to deliver these interventions with fidelity.
- The Secretary of Defense should ensure all elementary school special education teachers can access data on their students’ test scores, assignment grades, and academic progress. DODEA should direct school administrators to give special education teachers a clear way to access their students’ data or to provide dedicated collaboration time between special education and general education teachers.
- The Secretary of Defense should ensure that all students DODEA has identified as eligible for additional support in literacy or math receive the support they need to remediate academic skill deficits so they can meet the demands of grade-level instruction.
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About the author
Editor-in-Chief Joe Wallace is a 13-year veteran of the United States Air Force and a former reporter/editor for Air Force Television News and the Pentagon Channel. His freelance work includes contract work for Motorola, VALoans.com, and Credit Karma. He is co-founder of Dim Art House in Springfield, Illinois, and spends his non-writing time as an abstract painter, independent publisher, and occasional filmmaker.
