By: Rodríguez, Menendez S.B. No. 160
 
 
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 
AN ACT
  relating to a prohibition of a monitoring system performance
  indicator based solely on the number or percentage of students
  receiving special education services.
         BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
         SECTION 1.  Subchapter A, Chapter 29, Education Code, is
  amended by adding Section 29.0011 to read as follows:
         Sec. 29.0011.  PROHIBITED PERFORMANCE INDICATOR.
  (a)  Notwithstanding Section 29.001(5), Section 29.010, or any
  other provision of this code, the commissioner or agency may not
  adopt or implement a performance indicator in any agency monitoring
  system, including the performance-based monitoring analysis
  system, that solely measures a school district's or open-enrollment
  charter school's aggregated number or percentage of enrolled
  students who receive special education services.
         (b)  Subsection (a) does not prohibit or limit the
  commissioner or agency from meeting requirements under:
               (1)  20 U.S.C. Section 1418(d) and its implementing
  regulations to collect and examine data to determine whether
  significant disproportionality based on race or ethnicity is
  occurring in the state and in the school districts and
  open-enrollment charter schools in the state with respect to the:
                     (A)  identification of children as children with
  disabilities, including the identification of children as children
  with particular impairments;
                     (B)  placement of children with disabilities in
  particular educational settings; and
                     (C)  incidence, duration, and type of
  disciplinary actions taken against children with disabilities,
  including suspensions and expulsions; or
               (2)  20 U.S.C. Section 1416(a)(3)(C) and its
  implementing regulations to address in the statewide plan the
  percentage of school districts and open-enrollment charter schools
  with disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in
  special education and related services and in specific disability
  categories that results from inappropriate identification.
         SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect immediately if it receives
  a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, as
  provided by Section 39, Article III, Texas Constitution.  If this
  Act does not receive the vote necessary for immediate effect, this
  Act takes effect September 1, 2017.