Special ed fix to cost $84M

AUSTIN — Reacting to a blistering federal investigation, the Texas Education Agency wants to hire more special education staff, increase oversight of schools and provide special education services to students who were illegally denied resources over the past decade.

The plan released late Thursday would cost more than $84.4 million over the next five years.

The 13-page plan comes after the U.S. Department of Education found TEA illegally led school districts across the state to delay or deny special education services to students because of an arbitrary enrollment cap. That practice and other problems with special education programs were exposed in a seven-part Houston Chronicle series in 2016.

For more than a decade, TEA judged a school district’s performance based in part on the percentage of students receiving special education services. But the benchmark, set at 8.5 percent, prompted school districts to limit access to special education resources, the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs said in a letter to Texas education officials last week.

The department ordered TEA to craft a plan detailing how it would comply with four corrective action steps to better monitor school districts and offer more resources to students. The federal government did not set a deadline for the plan, but Gov. Greg Abbott imposed a one-week deadline. It’s unclear what penalties the state could face if it does not comply.

“This corrective action plan provides the state of Texas the chance to make meaningful, lasting change in how we educate and support children with special needs,” said Education Commissioner Mike Morath. “We are approaching this planning process with the seriousness that it requires and hope to solicit the kind of collective feedback, support and collaboration that our students deserve as we work to earn back the trust parents place in us for their children. My top priority has and continues to be to improve outcomes for all students in Texas.”

TEA officials said the public will have a chance to weigh in on the plan before it is submitted to the U.S. Department of Education. Hundreds of Texans turned out in 2016 at a series of public hearings around the state where families vented their frustrations with the state.

“TEA will engage in a significant outreach effort over the next two months to hear from special education students, families, educators, advocacy groups, district and school officials, and all others seeking to provide input on the plan,” the agency said in a statement.

Abbott and state lawmakers will have a lot to say about the funding and strategies when the Legislature reconvenes in 2019. But the report was not made public until late Thursday, and neither the governor nor key lawmakers responded immediately.

A spokeswoman for Abbott said the governor had no comment Thursday beyond his statement last week when the federal education department released its findings.

“The past dereliction of duty on the part of many school districts to serve our students and the failure of TEA to hold districts accountable are worthy of criticism,” Abbott told Morath in a letter last week.

Training, oversight

Under TEA’s plan, the $84 million would pay for staff to oversee compliance with special education laws, including a new “review and support team” with nearly 27 staff members. The state would expand a parent call center and create a know-your-rights campaign for Texas families.

For those families who were previously denied services, schools must provide compensatory services, which is expected to cost the state $25 million over a five-year period. Additionally, TEA said it will roll out “a large scale” statewide professional development program for educators on special education.

The state and federal response comes more than a year after a Chronicle investigation found that tens of thousands of students with disabilities were denied special education services because of the cap. TEA officials have repeatedly said the benchmark was not a cap, and instead was an “indicator” of performance. But the federal report confirmed districts viewed the enrollment target as a cap.

“While TEA did not specifically direct (districts) to limit the percentage of students identified as children with disabilities, the performance indicator certainly affected district policies and procedures relating to the identification of children with disabilities,” said Kimberly Richey, the department’s acting assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services, last week.

TEA eliminated the policy two months after the Chronicle’s investigation. In May, Abbott signed a law prohibiting the use of a performance indicator based solely on the number of students receiving special education services. Nationally, 13 percent of all students receive special education.

Other violations

The federal probe began in late 2016, after the Chronicle spoke to scores of teachers, educators and disability rights groups who say schools have repeatedly denied services to students with dyslexia, autism and other disabilities. Federal education officials reviewed documents, data and met with parents and school officials from 12 school districts including Houston, Laredo, Austin and Leander.

The department found the 8.5 percent indicator “contributed to a statewide pattern of practices that demonstrate that TEA did not ensure that all (districts) in the State properly identified, located and evaluated all children with disabilities who were in need of special education and related services,” the department wrote.

In addition to capping special education enrollment, Texas schools also violated other federal regulations, including the use of alternative programs.

Several school districts in Texas have employed “Response to Intervention” — an approach that involves addressing learning barriers in a mainstream classroom, rather than through special education programs. While the Department of Education allows RTI, schools cannot require teachers to try it before referring a student for special ed.

Schools were doing just that, according to the federal education department, which found a “general understanding” among educators that students were required to complete RTI before offering special education services.

Steven Aleman, a policy specialist with Disability Rights Texas, said the state’s corrective action plan contains “some encouraging elements.”

“We are pleased to see the agency saying there must be better monitoring of school districts and charter schools,” Aleman said. “We also are encouraged that the agency has preliminary budget for actually carrying out the plan.”

Several parts of the plan are “vague,” Aleman said. He hopes the final version will reflect the suggestions of parents, students and educators.

“With more effort, we are hopeful that there will be a rebuilding of trust in the special education system and methods ensuring full compliance in every Texas public and charter school,” he said.

TEA plans to submit its final plan to the Department of Education on April 18. alejandra.matos@chron.com twitter.com/amatos12