In 2022-23, one in four Texas special education students met the state's chronic-absence threshold. The rate was 25.0%, down from 31.6% in 2021-22 but above the 16.9% rate in 2018-19. All students were at 20.3%, leaving a 4.7-point gap.

Those figures describe attendance outcomes. The package does not identify the household, health, transportation or service-delivery mechanisms behind them.

The persistent gap

The SpEd chronic rate was above the overall rate in every year of the five-year series. Both rates peaked in 2021-22 and were lower in 2022-23. The gap ranged from 3.5 to 5.9 points, rising from 5.5 points in 2018-19 to 5.9 at the 2021-22 peak and settling at 4.7 in 2022-23.

Year	Special Ed	All Students	Gap
2018-19	16.9%	11.4%	5.5 pp
2019-20	10.2%	6.7%	3.5 pp
2020-21	19.4%	15.0%	4.4 pp
2021-22	31.6%	25.7%	5.9 pp
2022-23	25.0%	20.3%	4.7 pp

From the 2021-22 peak to 2022-23, the special-education rate recovered 44.9% of the distance back toward its 2018-19 level. The overall rate recovered 38.2% by the same calculation. These are descriptive calculations, not explanations of why the rates moved.

Where special education fits among vulnerable populations

In 2022-23, the statewide special-education rate was 25.0%. Students receiving free or reduced-price lunch were at 24.9%, and at-risk students were at 24.9%. The package does not provide a person-level cross-tabulation, so these figures cannot show how much the groups overlap.

The trend chart shows both special-education and overall rates below their 2021-22 peaks in 2022-23. The attendance data do not measure the services a student received or missed.

Wide variation across districts

Among 1,199 districts with published special-education attendance data, reported rates ranged from 0.0% to 100.0%. Fifty-five districts were below 5%, while 26 were above 50%. Those are district-level ranges, not evidence about the reasons for any individual student's absences.

The district distribution shows the size of the range, but not its mechanism. It does not say whether a missed day corresponded to a missed instructional or related-service session, whether a session was rescheduled, or whether a student was entitled to compensatory services.

The most defensible reading is narrower: one quarter of Texas special-education students were chronically absent in the latest year in this package, and the rate remained above the all-student rate. The records do not support a claim about why.

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