In 2004, under financial pressure, top level bureaucrats at TEA quietly instituted an arbitrary 8.5% cap — the only state in the nation to have such a target. The result pressured schools to purge and deny children from special education services, forcing many local school districts to pick up the slack. If Texas provided services at the same rate as the rest of the U.S., 250,000 more kids would be getting critical services such as therapy, counseling and one-on-one tutoring.