Special Education

This project explores special education in Texas public schools as part of Reporting with Data in R. It is a follow-up to the Houston Chronicle’s series Denied.

What is TAPR

The data included here comes from the Texas Academic Performance Reports (TAPR), a tool provided by the Texas Education Agency to find and download a wide range of information on the performance of students in each school and district. New reports are published for each academic year. The data is very detailed with breakdowns by student groups, including ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

Included in these reports are the percentage of students in special education, which is what we are after. Our goal is to find how the percentage of education students has changed over time.

Summary

Since the Texas legislature lifted the cap on special education enrollment in 2017, the percentage of students in these programs has surged statewide. A new analysis reveals that the number of districts exceeding the arbitrary threshold has nearly doubled, raising further questions about how the benchmark might have deprived students of accommodations while the limit was in effect. Here are some data takeaways:

• Since the 8.5% benchmark for special education students in traditional public schools was outlawed, the percentage of students within programs increased statewide, reaching as high as 12.9% in 2023.
• Compared to 2013, the number of districts above the arbitrary 8.5% standard increased from 591 to 977 across the state.
• During the COVID-19 pandemic, several schools in Williamson county saw a downward trend in percentages despite the lifted restriction, whereas enrollment in Hays and Travis country districts continued to grow.
• Since 2017, Austin ISD saw an overall increase in program enrollment, accommodating approximately 14% of students in 2023 compared to the 10% plateau between 2013 and 2016.

See visualization on these trends here.