For years, parents and education advocates have complained about a lack of proper resources in Texas schools for students with dyslexia. But under a bill passed in 2023, that’s about to change.
School districts have until this summer to move students receiving special instruction for dyslexia onto special education plans. The changes have been applauded as long needed, but they also come at a time of strain for public school districts.
Edward McKinley, who covers politics for the Houston Chronicle’s Austin bureau, said this change has to do with the different kinds of available accommodations for students with disabilities.
“There’s two different ways that public schools can provide accommodations or services for kids with disabilities. And they’re governed by different federal laws,” he said. “So one of them is called 504 accommodations. And these are usually things that are physical in nature. So if a kid needs to sit closer to the blackboard or get a little extra time on tests, those are the kind of things that are traditionally handled through a 504.
“And then there’s what’s known as an IEP or an Individualized Education Plan. And this is traditional special education.”
For many years, Texas public schools gave kids with dyslexia 504 accommodations instead of a more comprehensive IEP plan, which comes with more legal protection. This led to a lot of frustration among parents, McKinley said.
“Public schools have a responsibility to identify all the kids that are in their district that have disabilities and that need extra services,” he said. “And I think dyslexia is like an interesting flash point into the world of special education in general because like we have the technology, we have the expertise to help these kids so directly.”
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Dyslexia is also a big interest for lawmakers because it ties into literacy education.
“Literacy is like an enormous focus for Texas education policy. And we constantly talk to the Legislature about you have to learn to read by third grade, because in third grade you start reading to learn,” McKinley said. “And there’s this research that shows that if you struggle to learn how to read, it can just set you up for all sorts of bad life outcomes. So dyslexia is like this really interesting prism to look at the way that schools are serving students generally.”
Another thing to consider, McKinley said, is that special education IEP plans come with their own issues in our modern school system.
“Schools around the state spend somewhere between $1.7 and $2 billion more on special education services than they receive (from the state),” he said. “And a lot of this is because of different federal requirements in special education to conduct evaluations, to hold committee hearings. These are all time and work intensive. So it takes up a lot of staff, which is a lot of money.
“And there’s a statewide teacher shortage, especially for special ed and other specialized areas. So these districts are really struggling financially and in terms of staff resources to keep up with the work as is.”
Putting students with dyslexia on their own IEPs will add work for staff that are already struggling to keep up, McKinley said. There’s been discussion at the Legislature in the past about raising special education funding, but nothing happened on that front during the last session.
“There’s pretty significant bipartisan support to increase the amount of special education funding that school districts receive. Districts are so understaffed to try to keep up with these evaluations that they’re having to hire contractors that are often three or five times more expensive than it would be to just pay one of your own staff to do all the paperwork,” he said. “And their own staff are getting so overworked that they’re quitting the jobs to go work for the contractors.”
“In 2023, it was very much on the table, but it kind of got entangled in the conversation about vouchers. I think it’s been disentangled a little bit. And I would expect to see some version of that passing this year.”
