Still Separate, Still Unequal? (The Case of Special Education)

by Jonathan D. Becker

categories: Education Politics, law and education, Student Rights

Published July 28, 2009 @ 10:17AM PT

[This is Part 2 in a series on race, schooling and educational opportunities. Part 1 can be found here]

Fifty-five years ago, the United States Supreme Court declared that providing “separate but equal” educational opportunities to students based on race denied students of color the equal protection of the law. Largely, the holding in the Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education has been examined with respect to equity of access to the institution of schooling generally. And, while much of the progress that was achieved by eliminating legally enforced (de jure) school segregation has been erased by de facto housing segregation patterns that beget de facto school segregation, it is also clear that students of color continue to be denied equal educational opportunities within the institution of schooling. That is, while the post-Brown focus was and continues to be between-school and between-district segregation by race, more subtle forms of racial discrimination have persisted and proliferated within schools and districts, even in the most “integrated” schools and districts.

As one example of this “within-school” racial segregation, consider the disproportionate number of students of color classified as special needs students. The Twenty-Second Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2000) documents the extent and seriousness of the problem:

• African-American youth, ages 6 through 21, account for 14.8 percent of the general population. Yet, they account for 20.2 percent of the special education population.
• In 10 of the 13 disability categories, the percentage of African-American students equals or exceeds the resident population percentage.
• The representation of African-American students in the mental retardation and developmental delay categories is more than twice their national population estimates.

Those are the simplest ways to understand the problem.  There are, however, other more refined ways of "measuring" disproportionality. The National Research Council's Committee on Minority Representation in Special Education, in a widely cited report, offers three such measures:

• The risk index (RI) is calculated by dividing the number of students of a particular race served in a particular disability category by the total enrollment of students of the given race in the school population. In other words, the “risk index” is the percentage of all students of a particular racial group identified in a particular disability category.
• The odds ratio (OR) is computed by dividing the risk index of a given racial group by the risk index of another racial group. Typically, odds ratios are reported relative to white students. In that case, if the risk index for a given racial group is identical to white students, the odds ratio will equal 1.0. Odds ratios greater than 1.0 means that students in the given racial group are at greater risk for identification, while odds ratios of less than 1.0 indicate that they are less at risk.
• The composition index (CI) is calculated by dividing the number of students of a particular racial group enrolled in a particular disability category by the total number of students enrolled in that same disability category. In other words, the CI indicates the proportion of all children served under a given disability category who are members of a given racial/ethnic group.

The following table comes from the National Research Council report. The data indicate significant overrepresentation of African-American students in the emotional disturbance category.  In 1998, African-American students were 59% more likely to be identified as emotionally disturbed than Caucasian students.

As evidenced above, much of the data used in reports or studies on the issue of racial disproportionality in special education are fairly old.  It is not uncommon to see relatively recent articles reporting on data from 5-10 years prior.  However, some of the most recent data are maintained by the Equity Alliance at Arizona State University. Through their partnerships with the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI) and the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt), they offer a powerful data visualization application where, across cities and states, special education data can be examined with respect to the distributions of students with disabilities across various disability categories by ethnic/racial category.  Using that service, examining my the state in which I currently reside (Virginia), I produced a graph that shows the risk index/ratio for African-American students across all disabilities over time.  The graph shows that, relative to Caucasian students and relative to all other races, African-American students are significantly more likely to be identified with a disability; the risk-ratio increased every year from 2001-2007.  As of 2007, in the state of Virginia, African-American students were 54% more likely to be identified as disabled than other students.

Poverty is often cited as an explanation for these disparities. However, while poverty and related factors correlate highly with the incidence of disability, the effects of gender and race remain significant even after controlling for socioeconomics. Furthermore, and most striking, according to the NAACP (2001), “and contrary to the expectations, is the finding that the risk for being labeled ‘mentally retarded’ increases for blacks attending schools in districts serving mostly middle-class or wealthy white students” (p. 18). In fact, Losen and Orfield (2002) tell us that African-American children, and especially males, are at increased risk for mental retardation and emotional disturbance identification as the white population of a district increases.  In other words, even and especially where African-American youth have achieved integration, they are disproportionately labeled and excluded from the general education setting.

The data on the overrepresentation of students of color in special education present a prima facie problem.  Efforts to address the problem have been codified.  According to this document produced last month by the U.S. Department of Education:

IDEA requires States and LEAs to take steps to address disproportionate representation of racial/ethnic groups in special education.  20 U.S.C. 1416(a)(3)(C); 34 CFR §300.600(d)(3)...States have a separate obligation, under 20 U.S.C. 1418(d) and 34 CFR §300.646, to collect and examine data to determine whether significant disproportionality based on race and ethnicity is occurring in the State and LEAs of the State with respect to the identification of children as children with disabilities, including identification as children with particular impairments; the placement of children in particular educational settings; and the incidence, duration, and type of disciplinary actions, including suspensions and expulsions.

In other words, this problem has been identified and is finally being addressed in the educational policy arena.  The extant research identifies the "disproportionate representation problem as a complex social process of intricate interactions among multiple determinant factors" (Mooney, 2007). Thus, whether the policy approaches to remedying the problem prove effective is still an empirical question at this point.

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SELECTED REFERENCES

• Artiles, A. J., & Trent, S.C. (2000). Representations of culturally/linguistically diverse students. In C. R. Reynolds, & E. Fletcher-Janzen (Eds), Encyclopedia of Special Education, (2nd ed. , Vol. 1, pp. 513-517). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Coutinho, M. J., Oswald, D.P., & Best A. M. (2002).  The influence of sociodemographics and gender on the  disproportionate identification of minority students as having learning disabilities.  Remedial and Special Education, 23 (1), 49-59.
• Hosp, J., & Reschly, D. (2002).  Predictors of restrictiveness of placement for African-American and Caucasian students.  Exceptional Children, 68 (2), 225-238.
• Ladner, M., & Hammons, C. (2001).  Special but unequal: Race and special education.  In C.E. Finn, A. J. Rotherham, & C. R. Hokanson Jr. (Eds.), Rethinking special education for a new century (pp. 85-110).  Thomas B. Fordham Foundation & The Progressive Policy Institute.
• Losen, D.J. & Orfield, G. (2002).  Racial Inequity in Special Education.  Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and the Harvard Education Press.
• Mooney, K. (2007) An Historical Case Study of the Intersection between Policy and Practice in One School District: Untangling the Disproportionate Representation of Students of Color in Special Education. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Hofstra University. Hempstead, NY.
• NAACP Education Department (2001).  NAACP call for action in education.  Baltimore, MD: NAACP Education Department.  Retrieved on February 24, 2002 from http://naacp.org/about/resources/publications/education_call_to_actn_2.pdf.
• National Research Council (2002).  Minority students in special education and gifted education.  Washington D.C.:  National Academic Press.
• U.S. Department of Education (2000).  Twenty second annual report to Congress on the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
• Zhang, D. & Katsiyannis, A.  (2002).  Minority representation in special education: A persistent challenge.  Remedial and Special Education, 22, 180-87.