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Post by pavel on Jan 12, 2016 5:36:27 GMT -6
Four years ago, the Houston Chronicle detailed a statistical mystery in Texas public schools: Special education students were disappearing. More accurately, the percentage of students receiving special education services was dropping sharply. From 2000 to 2011, the rate fell from 12 percent to 8.8 percent, a difference of more than 100,000 students — and nobody had a clue as to why. Experts were divided on whether the swing was good news or bad. One academic called the change “very encouraging,” contending that schools were evidently getting better at teaching children to read. But a special education advocate said it was a sign that the most vulnerable students were being ignored, or even pushed out of school. Since 2012, the rate has fallen even further, to 8.5 percent. That’s the lowest in the country, well below the national average of 12.8 percent and less than half the rate of Massachusetts. Dustin Rynders, an attorney with the nonprofit Disability Rights Texas, has an idea why. The state, he told the Observer, is keeping the rate artificially low. Read more: www.texasobserver.org/special-education-enrollment-rates-texas/
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