Department of Education Finds Texas in Violation of IDEA

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss special education.  Some states do a reasonably good job, but Texas has not been one of them. A 2016 Houston Chronicle investigation revealed that tens of thousands of disabled students  were refused access to services because of a de-facto enrollment cap.

Christina Samuels at Education Week:

The U.S. Department of Education found that Texas violated the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act through a policy—recently rescinded—that subjected school districts to additional state scrutiny if their special education enrollment percentage went above 8.5 percent.

The office of special education programs on Thursday released a letter to state education chief Mike Morath as well as the results of a monitoring report. OSEP outlined several corrective actions the state must take, including:

• Finding and testing students who should have been referred for evaluation but were not;
• a plan to provide guidance to districts about their responsibilities under special education law; and,
• a plan for monitoring. OSEP said that it would work with the state, which is still recovering from Hurricane Harvey, on a mutually-agreeable timeline.