Happy to share another
Texas Center for Education Policy brief that is germane to a bill that is
currently sitting on Governor Greg Abbott's desk. Senate Bill 160 is about a scandalous
under-reporting in Texas of students qualified to receive Special Education
Services. You may have read some of the writeup on this in the Houston
Chronicle last fall. Education Policy and Planning Masters student, Rob
Walker, does a great job in capturing not solely the travesty, but also the
importance of a solution through statute. You may also link to this
piece [pdf] here.
Angela Valenzuela
Policy Brief
Abolishing
the Arbitrary 8.5 Percent Cap for Identification and Enrollment of
Students for
Special Education Services in Texas
by
Robert
Walker, Research Assistant
Texas
Center for Education Policy
The
University of Texas at Austin
May 23,
2017
Executive Summary
Currently
at play in the 2017 85th Texas Legislative Session is Senate Bill
160 (SB160), authored by Senator José Rodriguez and co-authored by Senator José
Menéndez, is a bill that is aimed at abolishing the 8.5 percent indicator or
cap for identification and enrollment of students receiving Special Education
services in Texas public schools. With Senate Bill 160 currently on Governor Greg Abbott's desk awaiting his signature or veto, the
purpose of this brief is to provide a brief history and policy context for the
8.5 percent performance indicator that was put in place by the Texas Education
Agency (TEA) in 2004. Specifically, this cap keeps the number of children
enrolled in and/ or receiving Special Education services in all public school
districts at or below an arbitrary 8.5 percent in order to avoid an over
enrollment of students (Rosenthal, 2016a).
According
to surveys administered to Texas Special Education teachers, as well as
listening sessions with teachers, administrators and parents conducted by the
U.S. Department of Education, enforcement of the 8.5 percent indicator has led
to several thousands of students not receiving services to which they are
entitled under the law (Texas American Federation of Teachers, 2016). It was further found that under
the cap, English Language Leaners (ELLs) were the most at risk to not receive services
to which they would have otherwise been due in the absence of it (Rosenthal,
2016c). In order for every child that has special needs to receive the
services that they require to be academically and socially successful, Governor
Abbott must sign Senate Bill 160 into law.
Abolishing
the Arbitrary 8.5 Percent Cap for Identification and Enrollment of
Students for
Special Education Services in Texas
by
Robert Walker
Brief History and Policy
Context
Since the
passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1975, any
school-age child with a disability, whether they have a visual-, auditory-,
physical-, mental-, emotional- and/or learning-related disability is to receive
full access to a district’s Special Education services. (IDEA, 1975). Yet,
despite this being the law of the land, the Texas Education Agency (TEA)
implemented an 8.5 percent performance cap in what many believe to be an effort
to avoid the costs of providing Special Education services (Rosenthal, 2016a). Texas currently
has the lowest percentage of enrolled Special Education students in the nation
(Rosenthal & Carrol, 2016). Districts have had to meet this
indicator or cap to be labeled as being compliant with the TEA standards listed
in the Performance Based Monitoring Analysis System (PBMAS)
(Texas Education Agency, 2004).
PBMAS was implemented under state education commissioner Shirley Neeley Richardson and
continued under the current education Commissioner Mike Morath. If districts provided
Special Education services to more than 8.5 percent of their student
population, they were labeled as guilty of over enrolling students and were
subjected to corrective action plans. These corrective action plans included
school and administration restructuring, fines, and in some cases, direct
takeover of the supervision of Special Education enrollment in the district by
the state (Texas Education Agency, 2004).
The cap was
instituted in 2004 after the TEA’s budget was cut by $1.1 billion in 2003 which led to the agency laying off 15 percent
of its staff (Rosenthal,
2016a). From available evidence, the indicator was an attempt to save school
districts money (Rosenthal, 2016a; 2016b). The TEA has said that the indicator
was not meant to be cap on the number of children receiving legally mandated
services, but worked instead to identify if a particular category of student
fell outside given indicators (Texas Education Agency Full Statement to Chronicle Questions, n.d.).
The TEA also denies that there has
been any observable drop in Special Education enrollment across Texas public
school districts and maintains that no student has been denied services (Texas
Education Agency Full Statement to Chronicle
Questions, n.d.). It is the TEA’s position that the PBMAS and the indicators
written within it, were created with the collaboration of experts in Special Education
and is in full compliance with IDEA (Texas Education Agency Full Statement to Chronicle Questions, n.d.).
Concerns
Despite the assertion by TEA
officials that there is overwhelming evidence showing that there has not been a
significant decrease in the enrollment of students in educational services
across the state, the evidence suggests otherwise. According to a Houston Chronicle investigation that took place in Fall, 2016, the
percentage of identified Special Education students in Texas decreased significantly
from 11.67 percent in 2004 to 8.5 percent in 2015 (Rosenthal, 2016a). The
following is the exact decrease in percentages
types of special needs services in Texas since the implementation of the
cap: There was a 46 percent decrease in the amount of services to
children with learning disabilities; a 42 percent decrease in emotionally and
mentally disabled children served; a 39 percent decrease of children with
orthopedic impairments served; a 27 percent decrease of children with speech
impediments served; a 20 percent decrease of children with brain injuries
served; a 15 percent decrease in children with hearing impairments served; and an
8 percent decrease of students with visual problems served (Rosenthal, 2016a; Rosenthal & Carrol, 2016).
In an effort to comply with state
regulations, school districts, including the Houston Independent School
District, utilized a number of tactics to keep their students from receiving Special
Education services. These tactics ranged from not offering testing for mental
and learning disorders, distributing Special Education assessment forms geared
to blaming other factors for mental- and learning-related disorder symptoms and,
in general, creating a system where learning disorder test results were “re-examined,”
meaning that they were subsequently characterized as being related to other
factors (Rosenthal & Barnard-Smith, 2016).
Under the cap, it was found that English
Language Learners (ELLs) were the most at risk to not receive services (Rosenthal,
2016c). ELL students’ special needs-related
behaviors were often attributed to their lack of understanding of English by
school officials (Rosenthal, 2016c). In addition, ELL’s family often did not
how attain Special Education services for the child because of the language
barrier (Rosenthal, 2016c).
Recommendations
Though the TEA has held a press
conference announcing that in the coming year, the 8.5 percent performance
indicator would eventually be eliminated (Disability Rights Texas, 2017), the
bill should still be made into law as changing the education code of the state
will permanently stop any such cap from being implemented again. In addition, a statewide policy of
providing parents at the start of each school year with a list of their rights
in terms of getting access to disorder
testing and Special Education services, in general, should also exist. This list, as well as all other subsequent
Special-Education-related information, should be made available and distributed
in all the languages spoken in each school district. Lastly, the TEA should
monitor and report biennially on all Texas school districts’ provision of
Special Education services to ensure that they are in compliance with federal
law.
References
Disability Rights Texas (2107) PRESS
CONFERENCE MEDIA ADVISORY https://www.disabilityrightstx.org/files/March_6_Press_Conf_Media_Advisory_REVISED_mar_3_2017.pdf
Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (1975)
Rosenthal,
B. M. (2016a, September 10). Denied: How Texas Keeps Tens of Thousands of
Children out of Special Education. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www.houstonchronicle.com/denied/1/
Rosenthal,
B. M. (2016b, November 9). Denied: Mentally ill Lose Out As Special Ed
Declines. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www.houstonchronicle.com/denied/3/?t=b0dad284f4
Rosenthal,
B. M. (2016c, December 10). Texas Schools Shut non-English Speakers Out of
Special E. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved from
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/denied/4/
Rosenthal,
B. M., & Barnard-Smith, S. (2016, December 27). Denied: Houston Schools Systematically
Block Disabled Kids from Special Ed. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www.houstonchronicle.com/denied/6/
Rosenthal,
B. M., & Carrol, S. (2016, December 24). Denied: Unable to get Special
Education in Texas, One Family Moved. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www.houstonchronicle.com/denied/5/
Senate Bill 160 85th
Legislative Session (2017). Bill
History. http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=85R&Bill=SB160
Texas American Federation of Teachers (2016). Texas
AFT Special Education Survey. Austin, Texas: Charles Luke
Texas
Education Agency (2004) Texas Education Enrollment target. Retrieved from https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105621-Target-Sped-Percentage-Introduced-in-2004.html#document/p2
Texas Education Agency Full Statement to Chronicle Questions [Interview].
(n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105519-Full-TEA-Statement.html#document/p1
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