The Climb: Special Educations Path to Resurgence in Texas

By Jillian Gaier
To say Ive had to advocate for my son is an understatement, said Erin McCauley,
mother of a child with a learning disability. Ive had to take on the whole education system. The
schools are very reluctant to help and I feel like they take advantage of parents who dont know
the law.
McCauleys son is a high school freshman in the Leander ISD. He has an Individualized
Education Plan to cope with his disability, but McCauley said getting him the assistance he
needed was no easy feat. And shes not the only one who has battled the Texas special education
system during the past ten years.
According to an investigation published last month by the Houston Chronicle, up to
250,000 disabled children are currently being deprived of the services to which they are entitled.
The article, Denied: How Texas keeps tens of thousands of children out of special education,
revealed that only 8.5 percent of students in Texas receive special education services while the
national average rests at 13 percent. Journalist Brian Rosenthal reported that Texas enrollment
has been dropping ever since the Texas Education Agency put an 8.5 percent recommendation in
place in 2004. Although the recommendation was not legislatively mandated, schools that didnt
comply were slapped with audits by the state.
Molly Spratt, legislative director for State Rep. Dan Huberty, said her boss was
extremely upset when he heard the special needs community was being underserved. The
Public Education Committeewhich Huberty serves onsupervises the TEA, but Spratt said
its nearly impossible for the committee to focus its efforts on the agencys rulemaking all the
time. Huberty himself has a son with a disability and took it upon himself to call TEA
Commissioner Mike Morath to personally express his concerns.
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In a public statement, Morath said the TEA is currently conducting a detailed review of
[the 8.5 benchmark] and how it impacts Texas students. Spratt said she expects the agency to
produce a legislative solution, especially in light of the federal governments order issued last
week to eliminate the benchmark. In the order, the U.S. Department of Education directed the
Texas government to report back in 30 days with an assessment of the benchmarks impact. The
three-page letter also says that the state must list the specific steps [it] will take to remedy the
effect of such past practices.
Because of Rosenthals investigation, parents finally have a potential explanation as to
why their children have been denied the appropriate educational services. But the legislative
session doesnt start until January and action is needed immediately.
These kids are in the core stages of development and theyve gone for many years
without the services they need, said Rachel Gandy, an education policy fellow at Disability
Rights Texas. The toll this 8.5 indicator has caused may be irreversible for the kids that have
been denied.
Disability Rights Texas is the federally designated legal protection and advocacy agency
for people with disabilities in Texas. Since the Chronicle story came out, Gandy and her
colleagues have been educating people in the community about the harm the 8.5 cap has caused.
Weve had a lot of legislators ask questions, she said. They want to be educated on the
issue and so we give them the facts. In the case that the TEA refuses to act on its own, we hope
[the legislators] advocate for a fix in January.
Having interviewed hundreds of victims, parents, teachers and administrators throughout
his investigation, Rosenthal has become somewhat of an expert on the topic. He said its possible
that things could turn around even without any policy change.

If the schools realize that the 8.5 number is not backed by research, not backed by the
federal government and is problematic, they could just start serving more kids than the target,
Rosenthal said in an interview.
But its unclear whether or not the state is prepared to fund a rapidly growing special
education program. Texas has billions of dollars on hand but there a lot of other statewide issues
that take priority. Special education is just another issue pressing legislators as they write next
years budget and according to Rosenthal, it will cost at least $1 billion a year to repair the
damage that has already been done.
The Chronicle investigation stated that kids enrolled in special education with severe
disabilities require five times the amount of funding as kids in general education programs.
Students who need to be pulled out of the classroom for certain hours each day require twice the
funding of a normal student, but only for the hours in which they receive the therapy. Lastly,
students with mild disabilitieswho need an aide or tutor in the normal classroom settingcost
10 percent more than children who do not require services at all.
So its fair to conclude that improving the Texas education system will not be cheap.
Spratt said that at this point, its hard to speculate where the money would come from.
It could be everything from taking money from somewhere else in the budget to levying
taxes, she said. At the end of the day, the students must be educated and the state is legally
required to find a way to fund them. I just can't say with certainty how.
The state may have originally thought it was saving money by denying kids from special
education services, but Gandy said the community will pay for this oversight in the long run.
If students arent getting services they need, their grades could be dropping which could
then lead to them dropping out of school, Gandy said. And that could just snowball into things

like later justice involvement or service intervention. We couldve avoided all that by investing
in special education earlier.
Dallas teacher Marley Friesenhahn agreed, mentioning shes had to jump through
hoops to get her second grade students tested.
You have to really be diligent and consistent about it, especially when its at the
beginning of their education, Friesenhahn said. If there are any gaps or lapses then those
become loopholes for the district to make excuses like last years teacher didnt notice anything
so [the student] just must be having a weird year.
Meanwhile, Mirta Sonnen, director of special education in Fort Worth, said that looking
at the plunging numbers alone could be misleading.
In the past few years, weve seen a huge increase in helping children before they are
referred to special ed, she said.
Sonnen said some of these early interventions include sitting at the front of the
classroom, getting extra time on tests and receiving individual attention from the teacherall
accommodations that also fall under the Section 504 and Response to Intervention services
that aim to help low-performing students without having to label them as special needs.
In elementary school at one point, the school tried to push Section 504 but I was very
knowledgeable and understood that [Section] 504 was kind of like a scapegoat, a way to
manipulate parents, McCauley said. I insisted on the Individualized Education Plan that only
comes with special education because its a legally binding document so theres accountability
with the school. [Section] 504 doesnt have that.
During Rosenthals investigation, he found that since 2004, many students with
disabilities were being placed into programs, such as Section 504 and Response to Intervention,

which may help struggling students but are not adequate substitutions for formal special
education.
I think part of the reason why it escaped notice is that people had a feelingand this is a
feeling that was encouraged by the Texas Education Agencythat this was imposed by the
federal government or that this was backed by research, Rosenthal said. So parents and
advocates may have felt uncomfortable with it but they thought there was nothing they could do
about it.
McCauley agreed, saying that parents often feel helpless because the school has an
intimidating way of approaching people who ask for things.
The problem definitely stems from a higher level, McCauley said. The administration
the whole special education departmentwould give poor direction to the teachers because
theyre uneducated themselves.
As a teacher, Friesenhahn said she wasnt aware of the 8.5 cap but she did have to
document prospective special education students for 12 weeks before they could even be
considered for an evaluation.
The administration has never discouraged us from suggesting kids for special ed but
theyre very clear that its out of their control to a certain degree, Friesenhahn said. The
administrators tell us theyre not really in charge of choosing who gets tested and approved
because its the district that steps in to make those decisions.
Rosenthal said the children who have suffered the most are the ones that live in big cities
in Texas or in homes where English is not spoken. Children with mild disabilities have also been
overlooked.

Its the childrenkind of like minethat fall in a gray area where they appear to be
typically developing until they come home from school and they dont understand something or
they need something to be presented in a different way, McCauley said. Its those students that
I feel lack the most support.
The Chronicle investigation has received an overwhelming amount of positive responses
from the public on its social media accounts and public forums. Still, some administrators dont
think the Texas special education system is in need of dire repair.
We feel comfortable with the number of special ed referrals we get, Sonnen said. We
feel like kids are getting what they need so its never been a point of concern.
According to Sonnen, the reason Texas special education numbers seem low may be
because the program does not include students with dyslexia or students who are gifted and
talented, whereas special education programs in other states do include these categories. The
U.S. Department of Education will be examining this claim in the coming weeks. It will also be
investigating the TEAs assertion that the 8.5 cap helped curve the over-identification and
disproportionate representation of African-Americans in the special education system.
At this point, many state lawmakers and members of the Texas Board of Education have
yet to weight in but Rosenthal said he isnt surprised.
This is an enormous issue that has been dropped on their lap, he said. We are talking
about tens of thousands of kids, were talking about a cost of at least a billion dollars a year []
I think that the stakes are very high and because of that, state officials are trying to grapple with
it before they comment publically.
While words of hope and support from Texas leadership could spark dialogue,
Friesenhahn said action is the only thing that can create real change.

Its our job as educators to be there for these students and we cant fully do that until we
have a special education program that serves all kids that need it.