In September 2016, a Houston Chronicle investigation reported that Texas had for years held the share of students receiving special education to a target far below the national rate. The InformED Report for October 27, 2016 led with that story and the reaction to it. It then looked at how little education featured in the first presidential debate, and at new federal figures on student loan defaults at for-profit colleges, alongside Senator Elizabeth Warren’s criticism of how the Education Department was treating former Corinthian Colleges students.
In this edition
- The Houston Chronicle reported that Texas officials had set an 8.5 percent benchmark for special education enrollment, far below the national average of about 13 percent.
- Education received only fleeting mentions in the first presidential debate and remained a second-tier issue in the campaign.
- Students at for-profit colleges accounted for 35 percent of federal student loan defaults while making up 26 percent of borrowers.
- Senator Warren said nearly 80,000 former Corinthian students were being pushed into debt collection.
How Texas kept children out of special education
Brian M. Rosenthal’s investigation for the Houston Chronicle found that, starting in 2004, unelected officials at the Texas Education Agency set a benchmark of 8.5 percent for the share of students who should receive special education services, and then audited districts that served more. The policy was never publicly announced or explained. Districts above the line were asked to file “corrective action” plans for lowering their special education populations. The paper reported that Texas reached 8.5 percent for the first time in 2015, down from about 12 percent a dozen years earlier, while the national average stood near 13 percent.
The Chronicle told the story through families such as Heidi Walker, who had told administrators at her son’s school in Humble that her 5-year-old had been diagnosed with a disability similar to autism, months before a kindergarten meltdown at recess showed how much help he needed. Federal law has required public schools to serve every eligible child with a disability since 1975. By the paper’s estimate, if Texas served students at the national rate, 250,000 more children would be receiving services such as therapy, counseling and one-on-one tutoring. Writing in The Washington Post, Valerie Strauss summarized the finding that the effort had saved the state billions of dollars while denying support to children with autism, dyslexia, epilepsy, mental illness, speech impairments, and even blindness and deafness.
The state disputed the account. The Texas Education Agency said 8.5 percent was an “indicator,” not a mandated goal, and that it did not punish districts that exceeded it. Even so, Education Commissioner Mike Morath said the agency would review its special education program, and House Speaker Joe Straus said he would work with the agency on the problem. According to the Chronicle, no other state had limited special education in this way.
For special education directors anywhere, the story raised a hard question about what drives identification. A district’s obligation to evaluate a child it suspects has a disability comes from federal law, not from a state target or a budget line, and an enrollment figure that looks low can hide children who were never assessed.
Education’s small place in the presidential debate
Politico’s Michael Stratford counted only fleeting mentions of education in the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Clinton raised it most often. She twice mentioned “debt-free college” as part of her economic plan, pledged to invest in education for middle-class workers, and promised to help people refinance college debt at a lower rate. She also suggested that if Trump paid no federal income tax, he contributed “zero for schools.” Trump said the country needed new schools, along with hospitals and airports, but that “we don’t have the money because it’s been squandered on so many of [Clinton’s] ideas.”
Business Insider’s Abby Jackson described education as a second-tier issue in the 2016 election, with both nominees spending most of their time on national security, trade and an email scandal. In Trump’s case, education still followed him through the lawsuits brought by former students of Trump University. For school leaders trying to read the campaign, the debates gave few specifics. The candidates’ written plans, rather than their stage remarks, were the better guide to what either administration might do.
For-profit colleges and student loan defaults
New Education Department data, reported by Lucinda Shen in Fortune, showed that students at for-profit colleges accounted for 35 percent of federal student loan defaults in the three-year period beginning in 2013, down from 44 percent two years earlier. Those students made up just 26 percent of all borrowers. The measure counted borrowers who had missed payments for 360 consecutive days. The release came as the department was tightening its oversight of for-profit chains such as ITT Technical Institute, DeVry, Corinthian Colleges and Brown Mackie College.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts drew attention to what happened to students after a college failed. Common Dreams reported that, in a letter to Secretary John King, she said the department’s student loan bank was pushing nearly 80,000 former Corinthian students into some form of debt collection, despite assurances that they would be eligible for loan discharges. “It is unconscionable that instead of helping these borrowers, vast numbers of Corinthian victims are currently being hounded,” she wrote. CNN Money, meanwhile, offered prospective students a list of questions to ask before enrolling at any for-profit college.
For high school counselors, the default figures were a practical warning. Helping a student compare a program’s cost, completion record and job placement before signing a loan is part of preparing them for what comes after graduation.
Sources
- Brian M. Rosenthal, “How Texas keeps tens of thousands of children out of special education,” Houston Chronicle, September 2016.
- Valerie Strauss, “What Texas did to its special education students,” The Washington Post, September 18, 2016.
- Michael Stratford, “Fleeting mentions of education in first debate,” Politico, September 27, 2016.
- Abby Jackson, “Here’s where Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump stand on education,” Business Insider, September 2016.
- Lucinda Shen, “For-Profit Colleges Account for a Third of All Federal Student Loan Defaults,” Fortune, September 29, 2016.
- Lauren McCauley, “Warren Blasts Dept of Ed. for ‘Hounding’ Students Defrauded by For-Profit School,” Common Dreams, September 30, 2016.
- Katie Lobosco, “For-profit colleges: 6 things to ask before enrolling,” CNN Money, September 2016.
About the InformED Report
The InformED Report is edCircuit’s short news program on education. This edition first ran on October 27, 2016. In 2026, edCircuit re-presented it with a new anchor and this full written account. Both report the stories as they stood on that date and link the original reporting, so readers can see exactly where each claim came from.
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