Texas special education fix calls for more staff, training

Texas has unveiled an initial draft of how it will overhaul special education after federal officials found that the state for years illegally denied services to students with disabilities.

The 13-page plan released Thursday would create a professional statewide special education deployment system.

It also calls for increasing special education staffing, providing better special education training for teachers and creating more tools for parents of children with suspected disabilities, all while helping school districts identify and help thousands of students who were previously denied special education services.

After soliciting public comment, a revised plan will be released in March.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education concluded that Texas school districts, for more than a decade beginning in 2004, illegally capped the number of special education students at 8.5 percent of total enrollment.