What will Keir Starmer and his colleagues learn from the disaster of their attempt to cut benefits? Most speculation so far has been focused on the prime minister’s prospects, and other ministerial careers. But there are soon going to be more big decisions to make, which will have massive consequences for people’s lives.

One policy area in particular is about to return the political conversation to the subject that defined last week’s fiasco: disability. Once again, Labour MPs from all wings of the party are feeling anxious and restless. Campaign groups and charities – not to mention the huge numbers of people who will be directly affected – fear the worst. With the wounds from the welfare bill fiasco still raw, there is a grim sense of a possible reprisal of the same story.

And this is why. The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, wants to reform England’s system of provision for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, or Send. Long years of Conservative failure – not least, reforms introduced a decade ago that were lamentably underfunded, and an exodus of children from mainstream to specialist schools – have resulted in ballooning costs amid disappointing outcomes. The councils that administer everything are crying out for help. The Treasury, meanwhile, surveys the mess and demands action.

A new education white paper will be published in the autumn. Phillipson says the government needs to “think very differently”. She wants to reverse a trend that took root in the Tory years and prioritise the inclusion of Send kids in mainstream schools. There is talk of somehow “making sure that all teachers are teachers of special educational needs [sic]”. A new neurodivergence task and finish group that will “work alongside the department to drive inclusive education” has been created; £740m of capital funding is being spent on “adapting classrooms to be more accessible and for creating specialist facilities”.

On the face of it, these moves are very welcome. But self-evidently, it will take much more – and a lot of time – to meaningfully turn things around. One of the big teaching unions has already said that without a commensurate increase in day-to-day schools spending, the plans could put “extreme pressure” on teachers. And there is an even bigger tension at the heart of the government’s plans.

Since Labour won the election, rising noise has been coming from Whitehall and beyond about drastically restricting the legal rights to dedicated provision that underpin the education of hundreds of thousands of children and young people. Those rights are enforced by the official Send tribunal, and embodied in education, health and care plans (EHCPs), which set out children’s needs and the provision they entail in a legally binding document. Contrary to what you read in certain news outlets, they are not any kind of “golden ticket”: parents and carers used to unreturned phone calls and long waits still frequently have to fight their local councils for the help their plans set out. But – and as a special needs parent, I speak from experience – they usually allow stressed-out families to just about sleep at night.

For about 40 years, such rights have been a cornerstone of the Send system. But their future is now uncertain: councils, in particular, are frantically lobbying ministers to get parents and their pesky rights out of the way. Late last year, a government source quoted in the Financial Times held out the prospect of “thousands fewer pupils” having access to rights-based provision. Despite the fact that EHCPs are most sorely needed in mainstream schools, a senior adviser to the Department for Education recently said that a consideration of whether EHCPs should no longer apply to children in exactly those settings is “the conversation we’re in the middle of”. There are whispers about families who currently have EHCPs being allowed to keep them, while in the future, kids with similar needs would be waved away, something that threatens a stereotypical two-tier model, another element with worrying echoes of the benefits disaster.

As a result, parents and carers – and many teachers – are terrified. Whenever ministers are asked about what is going to happen next, they tend to come out with the response: “no decision has been made”. On Sunday, the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg challenged Phillipson on whether she is about to “get rid” of EHCPs, which was met with vague words about improved support in schools, familiar claims that the current system is too “adversarial”, and no specific answer. This, needless to say, is not exactly allaying people’s fears.

Just under 483,000 children and young people in English schools now have an EHCP, up 11% on the previous year’s figure. Their numbers have risen partly because ad hoc, informal special needs provision in schools has become so unreliable that the only way of having any chance of securing what a child needs is to apply for one. Official data shows that the majority of applications for EHCPs are initiated by schools and colleges, often as a last-ditch move. In short, many children desperately need them. Without the support such plans are meant to guarantee, even more pupils would either exit mainstream into specialist provision that is often eye-wateringly expensive, or end up joining the increasing numbers of kids who are not in formal education at all.

For the foreseeable future, because even an optimist would have to agree that improvements promised by the government will take years to really kick in, all that will remain the case. So the safest and most humane option would be to leave children’s legal entitlements in place, and start to improve Send provision as Phillipson wants, on the basis that boosted ad hoc help will naturally bring down EHCP numbers and costs. Instead, her most vivid move could be an awful rights grab, which would surely heighten the impression that this Labour party has an ingrained problem with issues around disability.

A new campaign titled Save Our Children’s Rights was launched over the weekend with a letter in the Guardian signed by leading figures from charities and lobby groups, including Disability Rights UK, the National Autistic Society and Mencap – as well as such high-profile Send parents as the broadcasters Christine McGuinness and Carrie Grant, along with the TV naturalist and neurodiversity campaigner Chris Packham (full disclosure: I am helping out, and I was one of the signatories). For the second time in less than six months, are these really the kind of people ministers want to argue with on Good Morning Britain, 5 Live and BBC Breakfast?

As I watched the benefits fiasco unfolding, knowing that the special needs story would soon explode, it brought one big thought to mind. Labour needs to stop sowing fear and dread among people whose lives are already full of those things. Instead of picking on vulnerable parts of the population who already view the future with deep anxiety, they should maybe go after much more powerful interests, who might be compelled into helping the government with its financial woes. Instead, fear is swirling around parts of society that are already unable to cope. Labour governments are meant to make people feel less scared, not more. If there is going to be yet another “reset”, this is where it should be focused.

There is one point that may yet bring clarity to the government’s thinking. Governing politicians habitually pretend they will win future elections. But there is now every chance that Reform UK might end up in power, possibly in partnership with whatever remains of the Conservatives. Judging by his recent pronouncements, Nigel Farage has very questionable views about special needs and disabilities. There is strong evidence that the same is true of Kemi Badenoch. The current fashion on the political right for nonsense about savagely cutting back the state would have deep implications for Send families. If Labour takes away so many children’s basic educational rights, it may well end up leaving them at the mercy of politicians who will then vandalise their lives. “No decision has been made,” say ministers. It is time they took the only morally and politically right one, and fast.

I recently stood before hundreds of young people in California’s Central Valley; more than 60 percent were on that day becoming the first in their family to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Their very presence at University of California, Merced’s spring commencement ceremony disrupted a major narrative in our nation about who college is for — and the value of a degree.

Many of these young people arrived already balancing jobs, caregiving responsibilities and family obligations. Many were Pell Grant-eligible and came from communities that are constantly underestimated and where a higher education experience is a rarity.

These students graduated college at a critical moment in American history: a time when the value of a bachelor’s degree is being called into question, when public trust in higher education is vulnerable and when supports for first-generation college students are eroding. Yet an affordable bachelor’s degree remains the No. 1 lever for financial, professional and social mobility in this country.

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A recent Gallup poll showed that the number of Americans who have a great deal of confidence in higher education is dwindling, with a nearly equal amount responding that they have little to none. In 2015, when Gallup first asked this question, those expressing confidence outnumbered those without by nearly six to one.

There is no doubt that higher education must continue to evolve — to be more accessible, more relevant and more affordable — but the impact of a bachelor’s degree remains undeniable.

And the bigger truth is this: America’s long-term strength — its economic competitiveness, its innovation pipeline, its social fabric — depends on whether we invest in the education of the young people who reflect the future of this country.

There are many challenges for today’s workforce, from a shrinking talent pipeline to growing demands in STEM, healthcare and the public sector. These challenges can’t be solved unless we ensure that more first-generation students and those from underserved communities earn their degrees in affordable ways and leverage their strengths in ways they feel have purpose.

Those of us in education must create conditions in which students’ talent is met with opportunity and higher education institutions demonstrate that they believe in the potential of every student who comes to their campuses to learn.

UC Merced is a fantastic example of what this can look like. The youngest institution in the California University system, it was recently designated a top-tier “R1” research university. At the same time, it earned a spot on Carnegie’s list of “Opportunity Colleges and Universities,” a new classification that recognizes institutions based on the success of their students and alumni. It is one of only 21 institutions in the country to be nationally ranked for both elite research and student success and is proving that excellence and equity can — and must — go hand in hand.

In too many cases, students who make it to college campuses are asked to navigate an educational experience that wasn’t built with their lived experiences and dreams in mind. In fact, only 24 percent of first-generation college students earn a bachelor’s degree in six years, compared to nearly 59 percent of students who have a parent with a bachelor’s. This results in not just a missed opportunity for individual first-generation students — it’s a collective loss for our country.

Related: To better serve first-generation students, expand the definition