Friday, December 01, 2017

TEA selling Special Education IEP data? What is the connection between ISD and SPEDX?


Do parents have recourse? More to follow... JR



Texas Education Association 

Firing leaves Texas without a special education director at a critical time


Updated 5:56 pm, Wednesday, November 29, 2017



AUSTIN - After just over three months on the job, the state's special education director was fired last week after she filed a federal complaint against the Texas Education Agency for awarding a multi-million dollar, no-bid contract to a company that is mining data on disabled students......

A few months before she was hired, TEA signed a $2 million contract with SPEDx, a Georgia-based data company, to analyze students' Individualized Education Program, or IEP. An IEP lays out a student's disability, their education needs and how a school intends to meet those needs.
In a presentation to school districts, TEA said SPEDx will analyze IEPs to "detect hidden patterns and insights" that can help the department better serve students. In September, TEA amended SPEDx's contract to $4.4 million dollars. TEA says it did not put the contract out for bid because data project requires specialized software that only SPEDx can provide.

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