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The Texas Commission on Special Education Funding met for the first time on March 17 to discuss special education funding in Texas. The commission was founded by HB 1525 87(R). The commission was joined by TEA Commissioner Mike Morath, TEA Associate Commissioner of School Finance Leo Lopez, and TEA Associate Commissioner of Grant Compliance Cory Green.

 

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.

 

Opening Remarks

Chair Stacy Neal Combest

  • Commission was founded by HB 1525 87(R)
  • Commission’s task is to develop and make recommendations in a report due to the legislature September 2022 for legislation to successfully address special education
  • Hearings will always begin at 10 a.m. and hearing schedule will be finalized soon
  • Aims for commission hearings to be between 3-5 hours long
  • Majority of hearings will be for invited testimony only; one day will be reserved for public testimony

 

Representative Jacey Jetton

  • Have seen the struggles in our schools especially when it comes to special education
  • Looking forward to working on those

 

Representative Dan Huberty

  • Have worked in previous sessions on education in general
  • Important to create meaningful reforms in the special education space
  • For example, prior to 2014 did not require dyslexia reporting requirements; after HB 3 86(R), were able to identify an additional 50,000 with dyslexia

 

Representative Mary Gonzalez

  • Goal is to do something really transformative like we did with HB 3
  • Would like to model things we do with this population like what we do with English language learners

Senator Paul Bettencourt

  • Are attempting to look for best practices to help those in special education and their families
  • Discusses the monumental reforms in HB 3 and SB 2 86(R)

 

Senator Judith Zaffirini

  • Have excellent recommendations as a starting point; looking forward to providing even more to the legislature in September

Overview of Special Education in Texas

Mike Morath, TEA Commissioner

  • A lot of numbers are in the “red” which reflects the challenges brought on by the pandemic
  • Per pupil and overall increases for special education have increased significantly
  • Have added more students in special education in the last four years than most states have in total in special education
  • $21.4 billion has been added to public education because of COVID-19 state and federal action
  • Since 2017 there have been many policy and funding changes; overviews funding changes
  • HB 3 changed the funding formulary and largely increased special education funding per school
  • Special Education Allotment Committee met during 2020 and provided a report with recommendations on how to improve funding; are a number of strong reforms in the report
  • At this point, are out of money for the Supplemental Special Education Services
  • TEA adopted a strategic plan in 2018 focusing on monitoring, training support/develop, family/school engagement
  • In 2018 OSEP started a correction action response; submitted information to them in 2020 that TEA has taken the proper action
  • They responded they needed clarification 2021 and they established new requirements for dyslexia; SBOE modified the dyslexia handbook in 2021
  • Bettencourt – What kind of different requirements?
    • Ensuring clarity in the field with regard to how we serve dyslexia students
    • Porter, TEA – Submitting more information to OSEP bi-monthly and reporting dyslexia findings
  • Most recent data year, 11.3% of students are identified for special education services
  • Around 462,000 students were receiving special education services in 2017, are now over 600,000
  • Gonzalez – How is the teacher shortage impacting the work TEA is doing for special education?
    • Have capacity and supply constraints; are school finance changes that could help with this
    • Also have service delivery constraints; need specialized teacher capacity and general training
    • Need to train a large amount of teachers dependent on the students’ needs is a large challenge
  • Gonzalez – All teachers need to have an inclusive education background
    • Issue is if there are funding streams for LEAs to make capacity funding investments
    • If we get the incentives right, it can have a major impact over time
  • California has seen a decline in special education enrollment while we have seen an 18% increase
  • Huberty – Would like to see this data in context of general enrollment
    • Huberty and Bettencourt discuss 504 students and dyslexic students could/could not be counted as special education students in different states
    • Texas used to have the lowest special education enrollment numbers, and now is at a normal rate
  • Annual number of students evaluated for special education has skyrocketed from the 70,000-80,000 to 130,000; was a dip in 2020 due to the pandemic
  • Students are evaluated in a number of ways including looking at their historical education performance; evaluations can cost around $1,000 to $5,000 per student
  • HB 1525 put $50 million in spurring evaluation capacity
  • SB 500 put $50 million in for evaluation capacity and other supports
  • Use states discretionary money in our strategic plan for capacity
  • Is not an allotment for conduction of dyslexia evaluations; is something the state should consider
  • Need for diagnosticians is significant
  • Is a split between the 504 dyslexia support and general special education support
  • 2021 modifications to the dyslexia handbook; mainly changed identification practices
    • If there is any suspicion, the student will be evaluated
  • Special education funding is $5.3 billion annually; split between IDEA-B, foundation school funding, and other funding
  • $1.3 billion increase in total special education spending
    • Rate of spending increase on the LEA level is faster than the funding increases on the state and federal level
  • FSP allocation and IDEA-B formula portion
  • If a student is in a general education class, do you prorate a portion of that teacher’s salary to special education? Generally do not
  • $7 billion spent annually by school districts; is a $2 billion deficit between state/federal funding
  • The extra expenses are coming out of their general education funds
  • Huberty – Starting point is $4 billion short over a biennium? Money funding other programs such as early education and reading are supplementing special education?
    • May be less than that; these amounts do not include one side of the dyslexia allotment and does not identify the CCMR bonuses
    • Federal government provides 13% of the funding for special education, but 90% of the rules
    • Are cost differentials and not all schools are spending the same amounts
  • Are differences in the way revenue is given to school districts and how schools are required to spend money on students
  • Special Education Allotment advisory committee found Florida has service-intensity based funding; this is worthy of the commission’s policy consideration
    • Could, or could not be, based on a cost-neutral basis
  • Bettencourt – Is there a geographic component?
    • Do not think so, is size
  • Bettencourt – Could have a matrix?
    • Will bring experts on the Florida system to future commission meetings
  • 16 different disabilities under IDEA; 80% of these students should be performing on grade level
  • COVID-19 has significantly reduced student grade level performance; 15% gap for special education students who should be approaching grade level
  • Bettencourt and Morath discuss COVID-19 disruptions in student performance
    • RGV had the highest rate of mathematics proficiency before COVID-19 and now has the lowest
  • Gonzalez – If we were able to do some shifts in identification, could help get back to where we should be
    • Agrees; evaluation is a pre-condition to success and need to improve quality services
  • Texas has the 5th highest graduation rates; seen a growth of 50% to 53% in terms of college readiness; still is work to be done
  • Seen significant increases general student career readiness; not seeing those same increases in special education population
  • Supplemental Special Education Services program is too new to have outcomes data
  • Bettencourt – Only have anecdotal evidence this is working?
    • Correct, we have family feedback and student performance
  • Huberty – How many families have used SSES?
    • About 10% of those in the special education population
    • Challenge is that we have already spent all the money the legislature dedicated to this
    • Determining if we should accelerate and talk to the legislature about a supplemental appropriation
  • Huberty – What is the need money-wise?
    • $30 million was dedicated per year, exploring speeding up the second part
    • Could set up as a one-time opportunity or a reoccurring number
  • Chair Combest – How many are on the waiting list?
    • 13,000
  • Gonzalez – Concerned about those who were aging out at 21, have any more data on that?
    • Can get that to you

 

Special Education Finance

Leo Lopez, TEA Associate Commissioner of School Finance

  • Will be talking about GR; expenditures have increased at a faster rate than allocation increases
  • In recent data, 700 LEAs spent $163 million, less than the special education allotment
    • 500 LEAs spent under $2 billion, more than the special education allotment
  • Explanation for this is that revenue is not tied to severity of service
  • Overviews basic funding allotment, funding formulas, and how to calculate ADA
  • Dyslexia Allotment is driven by enrollment, not attendance; has grown over $172 million
  • Vast majority of districts in Texas are smaller districts and are receiving small-to-mid-size allotments; HB 3 increased FTE weights
  • Huberty – No adjustments other than the mainstream since the 90s?
    • Correct, the others have not been addressed since the ’93 school year
  • Huberty – Direction should be how do we get to the right starting base points rather than looking at how to tweak the formulas; simpler way to do this? Way to keep up with inflation?
    • Agency does not collect data on services provided; hard to know what specific services are costing around the state
  • Huberty – Would like to gather this type data through the education service centers
    • Additionally everything is driven by attendance
    • Huberty – Have learned a lot about attendance throughout the pandemic
    • If there was a massive revision in the formulas, would need to look at state spending levels and spending at the program allotment
  • Huberty – Any recommendations by advisory committees?
    • Were looking at a model similar to Florida based on service-severity

Federal Funding for Special Education

James Connolly, TEA Federal Fiscal Compliance and Reporting Division

  • Federal funding is given through
    • IDEA-B formula funding $1.1 billion annually which services those 3 to 21
    • IDEA-B preschool is about $1.8 million annually
  • Base payment for sub-grants is established during the first reporting year; 25% of total funding
  • Poverty and population components are derived from the whole student population
  • IDEA-B formula funding has seen a 14% increase; increase in FY ‘22 was a result of additional funds from the American Rescue Plan Act
    • 100% of additional money went to LEAs
  • Have not received the FY ’23 budget yet; how money is distributed is defined in statute and from OSEP
  • Overviews amounts set aside for discretionary funding and pre-school funding
  • Have to determine the state’s share of the special education allotment with OSEP approved methodology; were non-compliant in 2017 and 2018
  • Huberty – Asks for clarification on the state share percentage; is in correlation because we were stagnant and have increased it dramatically?
    • Morath – Reason the state appears to have a federal decline from a federal perspective because property taxes are going up
    • Morath – As the state further constrains property taxes, would be more in federal compliance
  • Gonzalez – Need to maintain MOE, has been a federal determination for 2017 and 2018? Gave the commissioner authority to move money around
    • Morath – Has not been an official determination in 2017 and 2018
    • Morath – Team monitors total state level spend and property tax; if there is a shortfall, flow additional money to school districts
  • Gonzalez – Have not had to do this yet?
    • Morath – First time used provision last year; sent $44 million
    • Morath – If total enrollment or total expenditures grow less than 2.5% and property taxes grow more than that could result in a shortfall
  • Huberty – Flowing money to use… SSES not part of this calculation? Should be?
    • Morath – Not at liberty to say it should be; money goes to districts for special education