Mike Lucero's List: Minorities in Special Education

• Harvard Studies Find Inappropriate Special Education Placements Continue to Segregate and Limit Educational Opportunities for Minority Students Nationwide

  • A great summary of a Harvard Study that indicated disparity in a number of states.  
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• When compared with their white counterparts, African-American children (in data from 1997) were almost three times more likely to be labeled "mentally retarded," according to a paper by Thomas B. Parrish, managing research scientist at the American Institutes of Research.
• The study found that African-American students in Connecticut, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Nebraska are more than four times as likely to be identified as mentally retarded than white students living in those states. In Florida, Alabama, Delaware, New Jersey, and Colorado, the number of African-American students identified as mentally retarded was more than three times that of white students.

  • State specific findings
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• In a similar comparison of students by race, the researcher found that African-American students in Nebraska were six times more likely to be identified as emotionally disturbed and those in Iowa were four times as likely to be labeled emotionally disturbed than their white counterparts. African-American students in Kentucky, Montana, Utah, and Minnesota were three times more likely to be identified as emotionally disturbed while black students in Louisiana, Washington, Oregon, West Virginia, and North Carolina were more than twice as likely as white students to be targeted for such special programs.

  • more state specific statistics
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• Too many minorities in special ed

  • A great article that discusses seven different Rhode Island School Districts that have a large disparity when it comes to minorities in special education.  
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• However, the statistical discrepancies found in the seven school districts are significant enough to indicate a larger problem, and are being analyzed by the Department of Education,
• When the state director of special education, Kenneth Swanson, was asked whether he believes this is happening, he replied, “Yes, I do. And that’s not one of the labels you can shake off.”

  • Expert opinion on whether this was happening in Rhode Island.  
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• It is important to understand that if you have a problem with reading, which is often the case, then you need to get assistance with reading,” said Vivian Stith-Williams, a student services specialist with the Virginia Department of Education, who has written about the high numbers of minority students referred to special education.

   

  “Instead, what happens is that special education becomes a dumping ground for these instructional issues,” she said. “When we should be asking ‘How has this child been instructed?’ instead we look to ‘fix’ the child. We need to be looking at how to fix the system.”
• Rhode Island has one of the highest percentages of students in special education in the country — about 19 percent, compared with a national average of about 14 percent. It costs far more to educate a special-education student — $22,893 a year, compared with $9,269 for a regular-education student in Rhode Island.

  • Specific information on Rhode Island
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• • These are six specific districts that were pointed out to have significant disparity when it came to minorities in special education.   
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• East Greenwich and Narragansett
• • Six specific school districts in rhode island identified to have high disparity.  
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• In Central Falls
• In Woonsocket
• Two Providence charter schools, Paul Cuffee and International Charter

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• he overrepresentation of black and Hispanic children in special education classes is among the most sensitive subjects.
• like emotionally disturbed and intellectually disabled (formerly called mentally retarded), that do not accurately describe them, special education experts said

  • minority students are being incorrectly labelled as disabled.
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• No one race should have a disproportionate number of disabled children, said Dr. Nancy Cappello, an education consultant for the State Department of Education.

  • Expert opinion on the subject
• "You would expect it to be proportionate to the demographics of the community," she said. "There should be no overrepresentation."

• Experts who have studied the issue in Connecticut and throughout the country said disabilities are often misdiagnosed in minority children, especially boys. Children who are placed in special education for the wrong reasons face stigmas that are difficult to overcome, psychologists said.

  "The child begins to see himself that way," said Dr. Jocelyn Mackey, an assistant professor of psychology at Southern Connecticut State University who has worked as a school psychologist in numerous Connecticut schools

  • Second expert opinion
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• This year, two municipalities, Norwalk and Windham, faced sanctions because their policies and procedures for placing children in special education did not pass muster with the state

  • Specific occurrences of misrepresentation
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• In Norwalk, black students made up more than 36 percent of the population of special education students in the 2004-5 school year, when the student body was about 25 percent black, according to statistics from the state education department.

  In Windham, Hispanic students, who were 58 percent of the student body, made up nearly 64 percent of the special education population and nearly 70 percent of students classified as having a speech or language impairment.
• In some districts the differences were even starker. In Hartford, for instance, Hispanics were more than four times as likely as whites to be identified as having a learning disability. In West Hartford, blacks were more than five times as likely as whites to be diagnosed as having an emotional disturbance.

  • more examples of over-representation
• Over all, blacks and Hispanics were 18 percent more likely than whites to land in special education in Connecticut in the 2004-5 school year,

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• A class action lawsuit against the state that was settled in 2002 also addressed some of these issues.

  • Possible court case?
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• Teachers, social workers and psychologists often have to make subjective decisions on whether a child should receive special education services. Those decisions, along with the tests children take to determine their intellectual abilities, offer numerous opportunities for bias to creep into the process, psychologists said. Educators, for instance, can misinterpret cultural cues as evidence of an emotional or intellectual disability, said Dr. Mackey

  • Subjectivity results in incorrect placement.  
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• culturally biased
• she has seen cultural cues be misinterpreted

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• "Committees have not done a good job of refining teacher referrals," Dr. Gottlieb said. "All too often, clinical teams' decisions simply support the teacher's judgment."

  • Lax oversite by governing bodies
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• What   You Will Find on the Next Pages

  • This site is a great resource for disporportionality data.  It also includes a great section on a case study that follows a specific school district and the steps they took to reduce the noted disparity between african american students in the overall school pop. and the % of african americans in the special ed program.  
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• In general, disproportionate representation,   or disproportionality, refers to the over- or underrepresentation   of a given population group often defined by racial and ethnic backgrounds,   but also defined by socioeconomic status, national origin, English   proficiency, gender, and sexual orientation in a specific population   category.

  • Definition of disproportionate representation
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• The 19th Annual Report to Congress on the Individuals with Disabilities   Education Act (IDEA) (1997) also cited the disproportionate representation   of racial and ethnic minorities as a major concern for both the   Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the Office for Civil   Rights (OCR)
• During the reauthorization of IDEA, Congress expressed its concerns   regarding the disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic   minorities ([IDEA] P. L. 105-17, 1997). Congress also recognized   the problems associated with misidentification and misclassification   and called for increased efforts to reduce the associated intensification   of problems

  • Congressional awareness of the problem resulted in a call for increased efforts to reduce the disparity.  
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• However, when such interventions are not used and students   are inappropriately placed, negative outcomes often result. For   example, students who are placed in special education have a higher   likelihood of obtaining a certificate instead of a diploma. They   also experience lower levels of achievement, high drop-out rates,   low wages, increased teenage pregnancy, and social isolation.

  • There are multiple negative outcomes that result from incorrect placement.  
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• Case   Study

  • this case follows the flowerton school district.  this district became aware of a high disparity between the african american population in the school vs. in special education.  
    
    as a result, they implemented two different approaches (TAT? and CAP) along with preferrals.  While there were no specific results at the end of the case study, based on teacher surveys and the available results the program showed significant promise.  
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• Special   education data from the 1998-1999 school year (the most recent data   available to the public) indicate disproportionality in three major   disability categories-specific learning disability, serious emotional   disturbance, and mental retardation. The percentages of African-American   students in these categories are 20, 25, and 27 percent, respectively,   compared with 15 percent of African-Americans in the total school   population.

  • These numbers represent a significant disparity between the minority representation in the school at large and within the special education department.  
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• Are minorities over-represented in special ed classrooms?

  • A simple and brief summary of the problem and controversy surrounding the misrepresentation of minorities in the classroom.  No real conclusions are drawn but some of the difficulties surrounding this issue are addressed.  
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• A look at the statistics

  • A great summary of the North Carolina specific statistics
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• Disporportionality Report.

  • See the website:
    http://www.ncpublicschools.org/ec/data/disproportionalityreport/
    for the full report
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• Addressing disproportionate representation of
    minority students in special education
    placement by refining the referral process
  

  • There are a number of other great sources at the bottom of the article.  

  • A summary of a school district in Maryland that realized it had a high number of African American males in their special education program.  It also details the steps they took to remedy the situation and the overall results within the pilot school (a 68% decrease).
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• n Charles County Public Schools for the 2000/2001 school year, African Americans make up 35% of all students, and 42% of (all) the special education population. A review of this data by age group reveals the unexpected fact that the disproportionate representation of African American boys first surfaces at the middle school level. In Charles County’s middle schools African Americans make up 34.5% of all students, and 45% of the middle school special education student population.

  • Specific statistics for charles county
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• The percentage of African American special education students by February 2001 was a multiple of 1.5 of the percent of the total school population that was African American. The percentage of African American special education students by February 2002 is a multiple of 1.15 of the percent of the total school population that is African American. In sum, the disproportionate representation of African Americans in our school was reduced by 68%.

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