Texas Fails to Make Special Education Available to Disabled Students
The U.S. Department of Education stated that Texas infringed federal law for over a decade by failing to offer special education to thousands of children living with disabilities. Betsy DeVos, who is in charge of the education docket, pointed out that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) did not ensure that proper public education was available to all students with disabilities in Texas. The Agency failed to adequately identify and evaluate disabled children as well as meet its overall supervisory and coordinating mandates. DeVos added that many children in Texas had been excluded from getting support and services as stipulated in the Disabilities Education Act.
The department arrived at this conclusion after sending its officers to Texas to meet with students, parents, school managers, and state officials in response to 2016 stories that appeared in the Houston Chronicle. The investigation carried out by the newspaper indicated that in 2004, Texas had quietly implemented an irrational 8.5 percent admission cap on the number of children qualified to receive special education instruction. DeVos confirmed that between the 2003-2004 academic year and the 2016-2017 one, the number of children identified as disabled successively declined by 32,000.
Betsy DeVos said that Texas’ leaders had assured her that they would work tirelessly to ensure all disabled students could attain their full potential. On his part, Republic Gov. Greg Abbot demanded an instant revamp of all special education policies. He ordered the TEA to come up with a draft of a corrective action plan within a week.
(Source: washingtonpost.com)
