In Texas, a growing number of parents of children who have special needs have decided to opt-out of having their child attend the public schools. This is largely due to the sheer frustration that parents are feeling from their attempts to have their children’s needs met at the public schools.
How do you choose which school to send your child to? This decision making process is one that all parents have to go through. Parents of children who have special needs in Texas are leaving the public school system. They are finding the lack of resources available to students who have special needs in the public schools to be problematic.
The numbers say a lot. According to the Texas Education Agency, the number of high school students who left the public schools, and became home schooled, increased 50% from 2003 to 2010. The total number of high school students who left the public schools was around 2,040. Students in middle school or high school who were in Special Education who left the public school system to attend a private school increased 75% in the same span of time.
Texas has a diagnosis rate (of students who should be receiving Special Education assistance), that is the lowest in the nation. Texas is at an 8.8% of identifying students who have special needs. This makes it really difficult for a parent to be able to have their child’s needs met within the public education system.
According to the President of the Texas Home School Coalition, Tim Lambert, “Parents just get frustrated with the bureaucracy of the public school”. He says they are “voting with their feet” by removing their children from the public school system.
I find this situation to be incredibly sad. What happens to the students who have special needs whose parents are unable to afford to pay for a private school education? Do those students go through the public school system without having their needs accommodated for? That sounds like a violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Perhaps the state of Texas is using a “loophole” to avoid having to provide appropriate educational accommodations and instruction for students who have special needs by failing to identify them in the first place. If you don’t have an accurate account of how many students in the public schools should be part of the Special Education program, it becomes possible to “hide” how badly the public school system in Texas is failing to meet their needs. Something is obviously very wrong when parents are pulling their kids out of the public school system in record numbers.
Image by Jayel Aheram on Flickr