Texas Cancels No-Bid Contract for Special Education Analysis

Andrea Ball
American-Statesman Staff
Posted Dec. 15, 2017

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The Texas Education Agency has canceled its contract with a technology company charged with analyzing special education programs.

The TEA had contracted with SPEDx, a Georgia-based company, to look for trends and patterns in special education records. But the $4.4 million project incurred the ire of advocacy groups and parents, who said they worried about privacy and the fact that it was a no-bid contract.

“Significant concerns have been raised regarding our agency’s processes and the scope of the project,” TEA Commissioner Mike Morath said in a statement Friday evening. “The efficacy of the project would be undermined without real support from parents and educators alike. As a result, this project cannot proceed effectively. TEA will continue to work with parents and educators to identify methods to improve outcomes for our special education students.”

Earlier this year, the TEA hired SPEDx to analyze individualized education plans, which are records detailing the services provided to children in special education. Those records contain highly confidential information, such as medical conditions, educational performance and family history.

READ: Texas special education chief fired after questioning no-bid contract

The state signed two contracts with SPEDx for a total of $4.4 million. Although billed as an analytics project, most of what SPEDx had been hired to do was to help the state with strategic planning of special education services.

The TEA never announced the contracts publicly to parents. Instead, the deal was discovered by Texans for Special Education Reform, a group of parents, educators and other special needs advocates.

The group’s co-founder, Cheryl Fries, was pleased to hear the contract has been canceled, but added that “the dismissal of this contract is not the end of the story. It’s the beginning of a new chapter to hold TEA accountable and to let them know that Texas parents, of children with special needs or not, are paying attention and should be involved in their planning for our children.”

The controversial project blew up on a number of levels.

READ: Eanes district pulls out of state special education data project

For months, Texans for Special Education Reform had been lobbying against the project, speaking about it with TEA officials. In November, the state’s then-special education director, Laurie Kash, was disciplined by her boss for criticizing the project. Kash later filed a complaint with the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Inspector General, saying the project didn’t go through the proper channels. She also raised concerns that a TEA employee might have funneled the contract to a friend, an allegation that an internal audit dismissed.

Kash was fired the night before Thanksgiving. TEA officials said it was because she is facing a lawsuit in Oregon that claims she tried to cover up sexual abuse allegations of a little girl while working at her former job. Kash and her attorney said she had been retaliated against for raising her concerns about the contract.

Last week, Disability Rights Texas and the Texas Council of Administrators of Special Education called for a halt to the project because of concerns about it and about the lack of transparency surrounding it. The TEA said at that time that it would not cancel the contract.

But on Friday evening, the TEA sent out a statement to reporters saying it had pulled the plug. The cancellation takes place in 15 days and SPEDx must destroy all the data it has received, the agency said.

Morath has also started a review of the agency’s contracting processes.

Article available at Austin American Statesman online HERE.