Special education

The Texas Education Agency — not local school districts — caused a broken system.

You break it; you buy it. That’s the so-called Pottery Barn rule.

In the Texas government, they run things by a different rule: We break it, you fix it. That’s what local school districts have to deal with in the wake of our state’s ongoing special education scandal.

More than a decade ago, unelected officials at the agency in charge of educating our children placed an enrollment limit on the number of special education children that a district could serve, a Houston Chronicle investigation found. It was likely an attempt to save money since children with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia are more expensive to educate than traditional students.

Federal law obligates all public schools to provide special education to all eligible children with disabilities, such as epilepsy, mental illnesses and speech impediments. So it makes sense that the federal Department of Education led by Secretary Betsy DeVos found the Texas Education Agency policy illegal.

Now TEA has introduced a new draft plan to ensure children with traumatic brain injuries, even blindness and deafness and other special needs, get the appropriate education that was denied to them for so long. The state is proposing to hire 46 new TEA staff members to oversee district efforts in fixing special education practices, and to contract with third-party vendors in providing information to families and professional development to teachers, as reported by Chronicle reporter Shelby Webb.

Yet, so far the state hasn’t ponied up significant funds for the schools to help teachers actually educate these students.

The TEA broke our schools, and now the state agency is spending taxpayer dollars to watch local districts fix things on their own.

For years, the state policy conceived by TEA officials resulted in a decade of frustration, heartbreak and pain for parents of students with special needs. These parents beat their heads against the brick wall of bureaucracy in a vain attempt to secure for their children the services they needed to live up to their potential.

The proposed plan does recommend a state fund to help school districts pay for providing compensatory special education services to students who were denied in the past, but districts would still have to shoulder most of those costs.

The plan’s unfunded mandate is particularly cruel given Houston Independent School District’s current financial plight. The Texas Legislature continues to shift more of the costs of school finance to the local taxpayer, and now HISD faces a $200 million budget deficit. The district also is dealing with Hurricane Harvey’s aftermath of damaged and destroyed schools, and an expected drop in enrollment and tax revenue.

The education pie in Houston is shrinking. As HISD implements new policies to make sure it takes cares of the needs of its special education students, it is only natural to worry that other groups of kids will end up with a smaller slice.

TEA is asking for feedback on its plan.

“If there’s anything we would say to the state of Texas, it’s that you have to be able to invest in the services for students with disabilities,” HISD Superintendent Richard Carranza told the editorial board.

Here’s our feedback. Hire the 46 watchers and write checks to the thirdparty contractors if you must. But since HISD and Texas’ other districts have to fix this problem, at least ensure that local property taxpayers won’t be forced to shoulder most of the cost. After all, it’s the state that broke things in the first place — and it’s state tax dollars that should fix it.