WE ARE

parents, educators, and allies who support the educational civil rights of students with disabilities in Texas. We are building a unified movement to find, promote, and advance systematic improvements that result in better outcomes for all students with disabilities.

WE BEGAN

as a conversation between a few parents outraged by our own experiences and those of other families documented in the Houston Chronicle’s “Denied” series and the subsequent U.S. Department of Education’s investigation of special education in Texas. We opened a Facebook page and within just a few days found more than a thousand followers.

WE ENVISION

a state in which all individuals with disabilities are identified, and receive an education that maximizes their future potential for post-secondary education, employment, community participation, and independent living.

WE BELIEVE

in our guiding values. By aligning and collaborating with statewide organizations, parents, allies, educators, and advocates, our mission is to:

• Educate Texans about special education civil rights and best practices and their benefits to all children, families and communities;

• Shift the special education “culture of conflict” between families and schools into one that focuses on student-centered learning; and

• Promote policies, practices, and laws that advance our vision to improve special education as preparation for students' future education, employment, community participation, and independent living.

WE ARE

Texans for Special Education Reform. Welcome to THE MOVEMENT.

• TxSER promotes the mission and vision of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and Texas laws that protect children with disabilities from discrimination and provide them opportunities to meet their individual potentials.

  
  
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  TxSER speaks with a unified voice to support educational reforms, policies, and practices that prepare Texans with disabilities for their future.

  
  
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  TxSER is focused on special education (including IEPs and 504 Plans) as individualized systems of supports, accommodations, modifications, and curriculum that are the civil rights of every Texas student with disability. We do not accept the misrepresentation of special education as a stigma nor as a placement that should be delayed, denied, or as something students with disabilities progress out of, except in very rare circumstances.

  
  
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  TxSER believes that the cost of denial of special education to students with disabilities is far greater to them, their families, their communities, and Texas than is the cost of its provision.

  
  
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  TxSER seeks to transform Texas special education into the collaborative, person-centered process it is intended to be, with the needs of the child at the center of policy and practice.

  
  
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  TxSER believes that individualized education that prepares children with disabilities for their futures is a model for school reform that benefits every student.

  
  
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  While TxSER acknowledges that significant problems, including but not limited to the 8.5% cap, have been pervasive in Texas, we are focused on solving those problems and creating a better future to the benefit of all Texas children, educators, families and society.