In New Plan, Texas Education Agency Vows Special Education Overhaul with Limited Dollars
March 19, 2018
By: Aliyya Swaby
Source: The Texas Tribune
After gathering thousands of responses from parents and advocates, the Texas Education Agency has sketched a new plan for educating kids with disabilities — with limited money.
The TEA released the 42-page draft strategic plan Monday, a couple of months after a 15-month federal investigation concluded Texas had not been providing kids with disabilities the tools and services they needed to learn, likely failing to educate thousands of students and violating federal law. Federal officials found the state was effectively incentivizing school districts to keep their special education numbers low and that many teachers fundamentally misunderstood the legal requirements around educating kids with disabilities.
Agency staff members held more than 100 focus group meetings across the state in February and collected thousands of electronic responses to get initial feedback on how special education should be revamped.
The agency acknowledged it has been providing a smaller and smaller percentage of kids with federally funded special education services over the past 15 years…