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In January 2018, the federal Office of Special Education Programs announced it found TEA had failed to ensure all Texas children with disabilities were identified and evaluated, regardless of the severity of their disabilities, as required by law.
The state also failed to ensure that free and appropriate public education was made available to all people with disabilities from age 3 to 21, the federal assessment found.
A 2016 Houston Chronicle investigation found TEA for years had penalized districts for providing special education to more than 8.5 percent of their students, an arbitrarily devised number that resulted in hundreds of thousands of kids being denied services to which they were en led.
In October 2020, TEA told the federal agency it believed it had completed all the required corrective actions. However, OSEP concluded the TEA had made only one of many required changes to its operations.
“It’s inexcusable that TEA has failed to make sufficient progress on making these corrections,” said Dustin Rynders, supervising attorney of the Education Team at the nonprofit Disability Rights Texas. “The majority of the findings were problems of TEA’s own creation and the progress has been slow and unsteady.”
Cantrell told TEA it now has 30 days to take additional action and provide do entation the changes have been made.
Among the required actions TEA has not yet made is ensuring all local districts post notices online about special education eligibility and who can request an evaluation to receive services.
