Where Law, Policy, and Practice Collide

Part 1 of a three-part series on the 2026 move of special education oversight out of the Department of Education — what the medical and educational models of disability actually are, where they came from, and why the difference decides what happens to a child.

A look at the credentialing patchwork across 50 states. IDEA says a child must be evaluated — but never who is qualified to do it. Seven states built dedicated educator credentials; the rest built something else, or nothing at all. Why the answer to "who's in the room" depends entirely on your zip code.

A diagnostician's read on Togut & Nix (2012) — the structural collision between RTI and Child Find, why "wait to fail" survived 2004, and how Texas's convergent evidence framework gives diagnosticians something more defensible than what most states landed on.

A practitioner-level guide to specific learning disability identification under TAC §89.1040 — covering Scarborough's Reading Rope, all three eligibility approaches, the seven SLD domains, exclusionary factors, and what data convergence actually looks like in practice.