Houston Chronicle: How Texas denies special ed to tens of thousands

[Winehole23]

Over a decade ago, the officials arbitrarily decided what percentage of students should get special education services — 8.5 percent — and since then they have forced school districts to comply by strictly auditing those serving too many kids.

Their efforts, which started in 2004 but have never been publicly announced or explained, have saved the Texas Education Agency billions of dollars but denied vital supports to children with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, epilepsy, mental illnesses, speech impediments, traumatic brain injuries, even blindness and deafness, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found.


More than a dozen teachers and administrators from across the state told the Chronicle they have delayed or denied special education to disabled students in order to stay below the 8.5 percent benchmark. They revealed a variety of methods, from putting kids into a cheaper alternative program known as "Section 504" to persuading parents to pull their children out of public school altogether.


"We were basically told in a staff meeting that we needed to lower the number of kids in special ed at all costs," said Jamie Womack Williams, who taught in the Tyler Independent School District until 2010. "It was all a numbers game."
Texas is the only state that has ever set a target for special education enrollment, records show.


It has been remarkably effective.


In the years since its implementation, the rate of Texas kids receiving special education has plummeted from near the national average of 13 percent to the lowest in the country — by far.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/denied/

[Winehole23]

The agency said in its statement that it convened focus groups while creating the PBMAS. But it was unable to produce any do entation of that. None of the educators and advocates interviewed by the Chronicle remembered focus groups.


The TEA also was unable to produce any records about why 8.5 percent was chosen as the target. It acknowledged in its statement that there is no research that establishes 8.5 percent as ideal.


Four agency officials set the benchmark, former employees said: special education director Eugene Lenz; his deputies, Laura Taylor and Kathy Clayton; and accountability chief Criss Cloudt.


The only one who agreed to speak with the Chronicle, Clayton, said the choice of 8.5 percent was not based on research. Instead, she said, it was driven by the statewide average special education enrollment.
Reminded that the statewide average was nearly 12 percent at the time, Clayton paused.


"Well, it was set at a little bit of a reach," she said. "Any time you set a goal, you want to make it a bit of a reach because you're trying to move the number."

[DMX7]

Our politicians are the special ones.

[boutons_deux]

Uncovering Texas’ Strategy to Slash Much-Needed Special Education Services

Federal law mandates that school districts provide special education services to students with disabilities--physical, emotional or developmental. But outside the public’s view, the state of Texas has decided that fewer students should get those services. It pressured school districts to meet an artificial benchmark of 8.5 percent, a rate far below that of any state,

do ents how “unelected state officials have quietly devised a system that has kept thousands of disabled kids” out of special education.

“We were basically told in a staff meeting that we needed to lower the number of kids in special ed at all costs,” one former teacher told Rosenthal. “It was all a numbers game.”

Rosenthal deconstructs the various excuses provided to justify the reduction in students receiving special education services.

There’s no evidence, for instance, that fewer Texas babies are being born with disabilities;

in fact, statistics suggest the reverse is true.

He also debunks efforts to credit innovative new teaching techniques for the reduction.

[Many school officials] said that they

were told by the TEA, the Texas Education Agency, that this was

a policy that was mandated by the federal government or

at the very least, backed by research.

Turns out neither of those things are true.

I think school officials kind of accepted it as reality. They didn't realize that it was arbitrary and originated from the TEA itself.

I received over 400 to 500 emails from parents and they told us the exact story that we wrote about in our article: about children being diagnosed with a disability and trying to get help from the school and being unable to do so. The line we heard the most was, "We could not figure out why the schools were so reluctant to help us until we read this article and heard about this policy, and suddenly it all makes sense about why schools would, without explanation, not provide these services."

https://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/uncovering-texas-strategy-to-slash-much-needed-special-education-services?utm_campaign=sprout&utm_medium=social&utm _source=facebook&utm_content=1474905723

Texas Repugs and the Repug-tainted/corrupted TX govt bureaucracy are venal, sociopathic piles of .

[Nbadan]

This is part of the problem.....but....some parents also don't want their kids tested because once they are classified as special ed they are on the path toward a blue diploma....for those of you who aren't familiar with blue diplomas they are given to special ed students who never pass a standardized test but do show year to year improvement....this contributes to kids just being passed on by schools and reading at a 5th grade level (if they are lucky) in High school....these kids can also not go to a university but can go to a community college....

[Nbadan]

the article is correct though....many kids classified as 504, who are supposed to be ELA strugglers under that classification, are truly special education students..

[TeyshaBlue]

Im about to get hip deep with my local school board concerning this. My grand daughter is dyslexic as all ...encode/decode. She's also failing 3rd grade English after spending major bucks on tutoring. If the school could ARD her, then modifications could be designed and made. But the school won't do that because they are "over quota". Ive been told that 504 students are just as eligible for modification and accommodation as an ELP/ARD child. That's something Im about to clarify.
Also, the new English curriculum is . There seems to be a new curriculum set each year.

Maddening.

[Winehole23]

give em , TB

[FromWayDowntown]

give em , TB

Agree with this.

We mainstreamed my older daughter, who is profoundly deaf but listens and speaks thanks to cochlear implants, from a private school for deaf children to a public school this fall. We looked long and hard at the available school districts, then made a decision -- and moved into a new neighborhood -- to attend a particular school in a particular district (a mid-sized district, to my reckoning).

Her disability is indisputable, which may be why we didn't have any trouble getting an ARD; after some testing, the district decided (and we concurred) that despite her deafness, she's academically at or above grade level and has allowed her to proceed outside of special education but with an IEP that offers significant accommodations.

But we hear stories from families who have mainstreamed kids out of the same private school into larger districts, and even with kids who have indisputable deafness, parents are struggling to get even basic services (much less accommodations) for those kids, particularly if the kids are at or near grade level academically. I had thought it was purely budgetary issue, but this suggests that it may be more nefarious than that, which is disappointing.

I'm relieved that we've found a district that is willing to help us and our daughter, but it's shameful that kids that could thrive in public schools with even minor modifications or accommodations are being denied that opportunity to satisfy an arbitrary quota. I guess the State wants them Kindergarten Ready, but doesn't really care much what happens after they are actually in the system.

[boutons_deux]

"may be more nefarious than"

TEA is of course polluted with sociopathic Repug hacks agreeably cutting school costs as dictated by Repug politicians, no matter who gets screwed. It's Repug ideology.

From my post above

"were told by the TEA, the Texas Education Agency, that this was

a policy that was mandated by the federal government or

at the very least, backed by research.

Turns out neither of those things are true. "

[Winehole23]

Teachers in a dozen school districts, mostly in the Houston area, said they have been ordered to discipline children who consistently act out instead of determining whether they qualify for special education. The TEA itself has found evidence of that illegal practice in multiple districts, do ents show.


As a result, Texas kids are now 31 percent less likely than the national average to receive services for mental illnesses, a disparity that has nearly quadrupled since 2004, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Education.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news...s-10623706.php

[TeyshaBlue]

Forgot to report back. She qualifies for an IEP and accomodation. Her grades are improving. That's more a reflection of a change in testing procedure than anything else. Oh, and her principal is just as exasperated at the rapid and seemingly nonsensical curruiculum changes as I am.

[Winehole23]

of course schools chafe over one size fits all legal and political accountability. a bit more of autonomy and getting around the rules to do right by kids might be called for.

[DMC]

This explains some of the posters here tbh

[Winehole23]

5th Circuit upholds Feds $33 million penalty for underfunding:

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/11...ation-funding/

[DMC]

5th Circuit upholds Feds $33 million penalty for underfunding:

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/11...ation-funding/

That should free up some funds.

[Othyus Lalanne]

of course schools chafe over one size fits all legal and political accountability. a bit more of autonomy and getting around the rules to do right by kids might be called for.

Make Prussian style education less important across the board.

[ElNono]

5th Circuit upholds Feds $33 million penalty for underfunding:

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/11...ation-funding/

Now I understand why ducks and boutons never went to school, tbh... it's criminal...

[Winehole23]

That should free up some funds.

It might convince legialators to consider the purely fiscal liabilities of failing to to fund special ed. the purely human consequences don 't appear to move the needle.

[Winehole23]

oops, did it again:

The day after the federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Texas for spending tens of millions of dollars less than it was supposed to on kids with disabilities in 2012, advocates have dug up do ents appearing to show Texas did the same thing in 2017 — raising the prospect it could get hit with even more penalties.

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/11...ation-funding/

[Winehole23]

In an opinion Wednesday, the 5th Circuit noted that Texas' weighted funding system "creates a perverse incentive for a state to escape its financial obligations merely by minimizing the special education needs of its students."

[boutons_deux]

hole TX should keep trying, 5th circuit will eventually rule that screwing disadvantaged students is great

Trump-appointed judges are shifting the country’s most politically conservative circuit court further to the right

Ultimately, in an eight-seven vote, the Hansons lost and the status quo won.

But the near-tie caught lawyers’ eyes: A year ago, that vote wouldn’t even have been close — Democrat- and Republican-appointed judges appointed before President Donald Trump took office overwhelmingly agreed to let the decades-old law stand.

But

all four new Trump-appointed judges sided with the Hansons, and

the two from Texas had sharp words for their colleagues who did not.

“The Second Amendment continues to be treated as a ‘second-class’ right,” wrote Judge James Ho, a former Texas Solicitor General confirmed to the 5th Circuit in December. “This case warrants en banc review.”

Experts and 5th Circuit prac ioners point to that close vote —

just two more Trump-appointed judges, they expect, would have flipped the court —

as among the best evidence of the impact the president has had on the federal bench since assuming office last year.

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/08...-conservative/

[Spurtacular]

[LaSíSí]

Now I understand why ducks and boutons never went to school, tbh... it's criminal...

[Quadzilla99]

Now I understand why ducks and boutons never went to school, tbh... it's criminal...

Lmao