Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

Summary:

Overrepresentation of Minorities in Special Education: A discussion of the faces in special education.

Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

drsarah 24 May 2007 15:45

For our first "read and respond" type forum, I ask that you read the introductory chapter to a book about minority representation in special education. The chapter is attached to this message in PDF format as "Equity Discussion Article #1" and available at http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2984(199423)63%3A4%3C602%3ATDPOAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D.
The book, published by The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, is a collection of essays by researchers in the field of equity in education. The introductory chapter is written by Dan Losen, who is also the co-editor of the text. Mr. Losen is a lawyer and former teacher, and his publications throughout the field of special education are a good introduction to this issue. The reading selected here is about 16 "easy" pages.
In addition, here is a more recent article titled Representation of Minority Students in Special Education: Complicating Traditional Explanations by Alfredo J. Artiles, Janette K. Klinger, and William F. Tate as guest editors. The article is attached to this message titled "Equity Discussion Article #2"

Once you've read the introduction to the text, please share your reaction to the readings in general, and respond to the following questions.
What do you feel are the key contributing factors to the over-representation of minorities in special education? Are there particular policies or law that appear to have affected this trend? If so, which do you think are the most significant? What recommendations or solutions seem to make sense to you?
Again, I look forward to hearing from you!

Group three users can be found listed on the groups page

Last edited on 28 Jun 2007 20:01 by drsarah Show more

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

Liz Mickduff 04 Jul 2007 05:10

I think the key to this article is the fact the classification system for special education negates factors such as; the student’s early learning or lack there of, life experiences, language, and behavior styles that make African American students more prone to placement in SPED. I believe that such factors could play an important role because due to a misunderstanding of the black community, AAVE, and cultural phenomena’s. That doesn’t not however account for the referrals from black teachers for students they feel may need special education services, only white teachers that don’t understand and are impatient with black culture.
I therefore believe that a large contributing factor to this dilemma is the long term neglect of many of the schools where many African Americans attend. Therefore I’m not sure if this is really a minority issue but an issue of socio economics.
Sometimes policies that are intended for good, such as IDEA, become detrimental because they push students out of the classroom instead of examining what could make the classroom and more successful environment for everyone. And it’s not the teacher’s fault. The teachers need the training and support to teach. All of us who teach for DCPS know that there is so little support from anyone accept the community of teachers. Maybe the students aren’t disabled so much as unprepared for the classroom. Furthermore maybe the policies are not constructed to truly solve the deeper lying issues but to put a band aid over the greater societal problems.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

drsarah 04 Jul 2007 20:00

Liz posts a serious question for us here — what, exactly, are the policies around special education intended to do? in what ways does the rights to a "Free and Appropriate Public Education", to a Individualized Education Plan, to due process, actually provide for students with disabilities? do they really provide for a democratic education?

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

mason 11 Jul 2007 02:13

I agree with Liz on several factors that she mentioned that would make African American males more prone to a placement in SPED such as early learning and life experiences, language and particular behavior styles. Also, just to add, I would say that a major reason that African American males are disproportionately placed in special ed is because it has always been that way, and our nation finds way to keep things going so that those in power keep the power and those that don't have power are put into situations where they are disempowered. Why isn't this phenomenom changing? Well, there are not enough African American males in positions of power to stand up and change the situation and break through stereotypes. Instead, those with the most power do not really have anything invested in African American males and it is actually beneficial for the empowered to keep it that way….so the cycle continues.
Historically African American males score lowest on standardized testing and with the current emphasis on standardized testing due to No Child Left Behind (NCLB), could be detrimental to their self-efficacy within the classroom. One could say that this only serves to diminish African American males social and cultural capital, leaving them without much to strive for…and reducing teacher and peer expectations on this group.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

EmilyEYoung 29 Jul 2007 02:17

Great point, Mason- African American males do score lowest on standardized testing. An interesting comment made in the article was on the cultural bias within standardized testing, a topic that we have commonly discussed in previous classes and have dealt with in our classrooms: our own devised assessments, with IQ testing, and with the DCCAS. Someone in Professor Doyle's class last semester brought up the point about the DCCAS testing on topics that our students would only know about if they had more exposure outside of the urban environment…. but then another student commented, "As teachers, shouldn't we be trying to give them that exposure, and teaching them about context clues and critical thinking skills that possibly could supplement their lack of exposure or cultural differences?" I think here lies the debate on cultural bias in standardized testing and what to do about it. I wish the authors had posted in their article some examples of what makes items on a test culturally biased, because I do not have a clear idea of what this actually looks like.. and therefore why it is a huge contributor to our African American males being disproportionately placed in SPED programs.

To note, an interesting comment made by the authors was, "Teachers often do not take into account their own contributions to students' behavioral and learning patterns," in reference to white female teachers. I think this has a HUGE implication for how many African American students are labeled as needing special education. There are distinct cultural differences between white, female, middle class culture and African-American, lower class culture, and sometimes these differences cause biases and misunderstandings. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? We have touched on it briefly in other discussions, but it is a very sensitive topic within diversity issues - I would love to hear some honest thoughts!

There were two recommendations that I thought were fantastic in this article to solve the of disproportionate placement: 1.) Restructure schools to emphasize the prevention of student failure, and 2.) Conduct assessments for the purpose of guiding instruction rather than determining program eligibility. I like the first suggestions because it emphasizes giving more financial support to schools serving lower-income communities, and implies that these schools should work diligently to prevent student failure - within each subject area and overall academically. The second suggestion is great because it takes emphasis off of tests as the "end all, be all" of a student's knowledge and skills, but serves as more as guiding information for forming educational plans for the students within general ed classrooms. Such assessments have been labeled "interim assessments," and the DCBAS has attempted a district-wide version of this idea. But, teachers should be assessing students frequently and fairly, and then using these scores NOT for grading purposes but solely as information for them and for the individual students in where the students are in their academic progress and what they need to do next in order to improve. Such suggestions like these two are keys to making steps in accurate SPED placement in the future, instead of the current situation.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

EWhitworth 04 Jul 2007 23:48

These articles really did strike a nerve with me because it confirmed my belief that there really is an over-diagnosis of the LD label, and further, a misrepresentation of African American males in Special Education. Like Liz said, I don't think it's because a lack of patience or caring on the teachers parts – it’s not entirely their faults. Like the articles stated, some students come into our classrooms with very low skills and the majority of new teachers are unprepared to help them, along with the fact that the majority of white female teachers don't receive adequate preparation to work with the African American males learning styles & differences in their classrooms. However, teachers might be thinking of one incentive to “over-diagnose”, which is to receive extra funding for schools in order to better help students that might just need more attention – attention that 1 teacher cannot always give 1 student and often leads to SPED referral when the student isn’t making enough academic gains.

Next, the definition of Learning Disabled, or its classifications, excludes environmental factors and poor children, further, African American males tend to score lower on the IQ tests, thus pushing them into the MR category instead of LD. Another huge factor is the quality of instruction of African American males – a concern I discussed in the 1st forum. Poor quality teaching can in fact, lead to an LD label. Like stated above, young white women aren’t adequately prepared in teacher certificate programs to teach young African American males that may need a totally different type of instruction to help them learn. What really resonated with me is the fact that African American males tend to be more physical – and we as teachers, need to build off of that and incorporate a lot more kinesthetic teaching and learning styles in our classrooms. If we don’t, we risk making more un-necessary SPED referrals just because those students cannot sit still, or adhere to strict school and discipline standards due to their high physical activity level. I worry about this happening quite often at my school & will make sure to, like Beth Harry & Mary Anderson stated in their article, “identify African American male student’s knowledge and skills, and to use those assets to build a bridge to the kinds of knowledge and skills needed for school success”. Further, that we must “respect African American males and a commitment to recognizing and developing their strengths and talents rather than interpreting their differences as deficits”.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

mason 11 Jul 2007 02:39

I like EWhitworth's and Liz's comments about it's not because a lack of teachers caring or patience. The greater proportion of African American males in SPED also holds true in tracking as well. One could say that SPED is a particular tracking. Different factors that keep students at a disadvantage in tracking are that most lower level classes are taught by the most inexperienced teachers and there is an emphasis on behavioral management in these class and not academic rigor. So, it leaves those in the lower tracks with less expectations for academic success and more expectations on behavioral problems. And, it completely doesn't mean that the teacher doesn't care! Last year and this year, I taught two non-intensive science courses and being an unexperienced teacher, I had greater issues with behavioral management because the students that had been tracked into these classes were ones with more behavioral problems and half of the class had IEPs. I welcome teaching special education students, but it probably would have been more beneficial for learning, if the special education and behavioral issue students could have been spaced out or even intermingled into the intensive classes. However this was not done at all. I think there needs to be a greater heterogenity in classes, where students can learn from each other and build upon their different strengths and interests.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

terrakathleen 12 Jul 2007 04:07

As many have stated above, the Harry and Anderson article indicates that cultural differences and a system ill-equipped to build upon these differences are largely to blame for the over-representation of African-American males in SPED classes. These students often come into class with a skill set that is not rewarded in our current education system; they are often more physical, have more aggressive language patterns, and use less-focused patterns in their speech. Teachers who are unaware of these cultural differences often mistake a different skill set for a lack of skills.

The aspect of the article that I found most interesting was its discussion of special education assessment. The ambiguous definitions of terms and the resulting subjective assessments of "milder disability categories" creates a system in which special education becomes a sort of catch-all for students with which we're not sure what else to do. In this kind of system, the extremely subjective referral from the teacher is - according to the article - the most crucial step.

As I was reading this, I was trying to think about how DCPS's implementation of the Student Support Team (SST) may affect the representation of African-American males in SPED classes in DC. On the positive side, SST teams require individual teachers to implement a variety of documented interventions before a special ed assessment is given. This may cut down on the subjectivity of the referrals prevent referrals of students who may succeed in a regular education setting with accommodations. However, the SST process (at least at my school) is often dysfunctional in its own way. It takes months to even have the SST meet for a student and then another several months to test out the accommodations; the whole process can takes months and then is often disrupted by the end of a school year.

As for solutions…if, as the article suggests, the issue is not in students' deficiencies but in educators' inability to build upon their students skills and strengths, then teacher development is needed. Teachers need professional development to help them to recognize strengths in all of their students' cultures and strategies for using a variety of methods likely to engage a variety of learners—specifically African-American males, who are often our most vulnerable and disenfranchised students. In addition, the creation more inclusion and co-teaching classrooms may change the perception of special education by reducing stigma for SpEd students and allowing for an easier transition into general education content and classrooms.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

drsarah 13 Jul 2007 08:41

very thoughtful insight terra — a skill set not rewarded by our system. in what ways might a teacher (as an individual here) come to make a decision as to whether or not a child is truly in need of additional supports, or that he or she is just typical for his or her own development? i ask this assuming that teachers have some degree of power over these decisions, and they can change this course. do you agree with that assumption?

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

jesstabak 15 Jul 2007 19:54

I think that the biggest issue with teachers' deciding whether or not a student needs additional supports is the fact that "additional supports" so frequently equates to "the additional supports provided by special education." Many students that exhibit learning and social difficulties benefit from supports implemented independently of the special services department.

My first year teaching, I worked at a school that attempted quite unsuccessfully to implement the SST model with several students. This lack of success had more to do with the general chaos of the school environment, poor administrative support, and lack of collaborative planning time than it did with any issues intrinsic to the SST process. This past year, I worked at a different charter school with their own process that was similar to the SST process. First, a grade level teacher team would begin a Child Study on one or more kids. This process involved us identifying what our three or four major concerns were for the student, and clear strategies to address each of those concerns in our classroom. All of these strategies were "additional supports" of some kind (behavior plans, modifying worksheets to include one-step-at-a-time directions, double-lined paper for children with handwriting issues, et al) and none of them required intervention from the special education department.

After 45 days of implementing these accommodations, we would evaluate their efficacy. Sometimes, they were working sufficiently enough that we elected to keep using them and not to make a pre-SpEd referral; sometimes, we elected to move onto a pre-SpEd referral, called a TAT. This was very similar to the Child Study in that it required we sit down to determine a new set of strategies. The difference was that this time, our decisions were further informed by comprehensive record reviews, parent interviews and the involvement of the director of the special services department. The goal was still unequivocally to keep the child off of an IEP. After another 45 days, we'd reevaluate.

Over the course of the year, we started the Child Study process on 8 students; at the end of the year, only three of those students were referred to special education testing.

A long explanation, with the bottom line being this: Teachers can absolutely provide additional supports for students that are independent of special education. (Our Child Study and TAT kids didn't even know they were part of specialized "plans," thus avoiding "special ed" stigma.) In order to do this, however, school administration needs to provide additional supports for teachers, too: cooperative planning time, special services departments that are supportive and help teachers keep to the rigid calendars set up by SSTs and other such interventions, and smaller class sizes to make it easier for teachers to facilitate classroom accommodations for the kids that they have.

Our response to children needing extra support within the classroom needs to be, like Anderson and Harry recommend at the end of their article, centered around providing services for kids who need them, not labeling kids (and the services they need) as a prerequisite for them getting what they need in the classroom.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

Mike Lederman 17 Jul 2007 22:25

To take a slightly different direction, I would like to suggest that the disproportionate placement of black children in the special education system can be explained most simply by the fact that black families are still living disproportionately in poverty. It is true that the criteria for placement are in many ways unclear and that some districts have used the special education system as a means to remove certain children from regular classrooms for unjustified reasons. However, the number of environmental factors faced by black children living in poverty that genuinely do cause “disabilities” is overwhelming.

These factors include higher rates of substance abuse on the part of parents leading to harmful prenatal exposure, lower quality health care, more lead poisoning, poorer nutrition and more exposure to smoke, moving more frequently, fewer educational resources in the home, and less attention from overworked, overstressed, and less educated single parents. The list goes on and on. African American children also face the added burden of generational psychological pathologies rooted in years of slavery, segregation, and racism.

Why black males in particular? Perhaps when the biological/instinctual tendencies of males toward more physical and aggressive behavior are combined with these environmental factors, the result is that real disabilities increase in frequency and intensity. It seems simplistic… but I thought I would put it out there.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

jnsarak 19 Jul 2007 04:22

Mike's comments reflect a part of the paper I thought was very important: "A report by Heller, Holtzman, and Messick (1982) places the findings of their research in the context of two crucial questions: (1) Is overrepresentation of certain racial/ethnic groups a problem? and (2) If so, under what circumstances is it problematic?" They go on to conclude that "overrepresentation is problematic if the circumstances surrounding it are unfair to students" (606).

I don't think that it's possible to argue that black students are being treated "fairly" in the special education system — it's obvious that they are not. At the same time, however, I see their treatment in the special education system as merely a symptom of the larger injustices facing them in the larger educational system as a whole. The fact that black students, and particularly black males, are over-represented and unfairly treated in the special education system isn't the real problem here, it's that black students, and particularly black males, are being failed by our entire educational system (and society) on the whole. The problem is much larger than this paper seems to admit.

The recommendations to, nominally, fix the problem of over-representation of black students in special education at the end of the paper seem to support this claim. Every one of the 7 "solutions" to the supposed problem of black students in special education is really a proposal for fixing the education system as a whole. While the authors spent many pages describing in detail the injustices wrought against black students in the special education system, their recommendations to remedy all of this point much deeper in the educational system as a whole.

We're failing black students in this country in general, and the particular injuries dealt by the special education system are simply symptoms of this larger problem.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

drsarah 23 Jul 2007 13:55

One thought on the direction of the discussion so far (which is, btw, just great) — do you think the age of the cited article reduces the validity of these statements?

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

Susan Oliver 27 Jul 2007 19:56

To answer Dr. Belson’s question “do you think the age of the cited article reduces the validity of these statements?” I would answer no. The issue of minority over-representation in special education programs found in the first article, although published in 1994, is still just as present today as it was over ten years ago. The introduction to the second group of articles points out just that. This collection of articles, having been published in September of 2006 is a lot more recent. The introduction points out that this issue has been around for over 38 years, however, researchers and educators have continued to ignore it. I’m quite interested to hear about what some of the authors in the rest of the articles have to say about the issue. For example, Wanda J. Blanchett bluntly calls out the source of minority disproportionality to be “racism and White privilege”. Are the rest of these articles available online, Dr. Belson?

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

EmilyEYoung 29 Jul 2007 02:26

I agree with Susan that this article is not out dated. Last year on December 18, 2006, TIME magazine published an article titled, "How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century" (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1568480,00.html). Many teachers could relate their workplaces to this article- how conditions and situations that have occurred continuously throughout the 20th century are still occurring today. I did notice the date difference when reading the article, but quickly overlooked it as I thought about how closely related the descriptions the authors' wrote of were to situations in DC. So, definitely, I do believe that the disproportionate placement of Africa-American males into Special Education programs is still happening today: All I would need to do to confirm it is to walk into the SPED classroom and look around in dismay.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

jnsarak 29 Jul 2007 15:38

I also agree with Susan. The statements I quoted were from an article published in 1982. However, these statements were establishing a theoretical framework upon which the problem can be discussed, and did not depend on and facts of the time period. Rather, this framework can easily be applied to the set of facts we currently have. Whether or not these facts are very different now is interesting, but irrelevant to the theoretical framework.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

jkirmes 02 Aug 2007 18:43

I agree too. Minority students are still overrepresented in special education and are still not getting the services they need to be successful. If the date of publication had not been on these papers, I would not have known how old they were because there is evidence of everything they cited in our schools today.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

lizmcouat 02 Aug 2007 22:26

To tie this article to the one written by Bolick: Is it possible that part of the over representation of minority students in special education is at all related to the idea that minority students are more likely to attend public schools, where their white counterparts are more likely to attend private schools? (Public schools are more likely to label a student in order to get them services where a private school simply provides more tutoring.)

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

jkirmes 27 Jul 2007 13:32

I, like James, was drawn to the importance of the two questions: "(1) Is overrepresentation of certain racial/ethnic groups a problem? and (2) If so, under what circumstances is it problematic?" I have to say that I wonder if special education services were truly working, like imagine for example special ed students were graduating from high school and continuing on to college at the same rate as general education students , if we would even be asking whether or not overrepresentation is a problem.

I am particularly supportive of the idea that differences in cultural context between African American male students and predominantly white teachers are a significant factor, if not cause, of the problem, but if special education services were designed and implemented in such a way that they promoted respect for African American culture and helped students build on their strengths to be successful in the academic world, maybe the overrepreesntation would be a good thing.

I also have to admit, however, that as much as I would like to see my vision of special education working this way for students, I do not believe that it can happen unless major systemic changes are made to the whole special education process. Labeling, categorizing and stigmatizing people will never lead to their success. What we need is a system where students' individual strengths and weaknesses are identified and communicated to teachers so that they can use appropriate classroom strategies to achieve success with every student. I also agree with Terra that more teacher development is needed in this area, but that alone will not fix the problem. We need both systemic change and well-trained teachers to make academic success for African American students a reality.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

Susan Oliver 27 Jul 2007 20:29

I have to admit that these articles pointed out some of the things I have been doing wrong over the past two year, having taught in a 100% African American populated school. The second article discusses what happens when general education teachers are responsible for inclusion classes. It states that general education teachers are “more accountable for the first time to students who embody more complex forms of difference.” (p.3) As a sixth grade science teacher, I taught every sixth grader in the school. Some of these students were labeled special needs and some weren’t. Regardless of labels, I knew each and every student and their specific learning and behavioral needs. Let me tell you, I (just like a lot of you) had a HUGE variety of needs. Through discussion with other teachers at the school, and from classes/sessions I had taken during the summer institute with Teach for America, I learned that having order in the classroom created the best environment conducive to learning. So order is what I sought out to achieve. However, just like I found in Harry and Anderson’s article, “[r]ather than build on children’s repertoire of behaviors, teachers typically aim to extinguish and replace these behaviors with conduct more acceptable to them and to move quickly to find the deficit in those children who prove less malleable to conformity.” (p.611) I was definitely one of those teachers. When certain students would not behave as I desired, I tried all sorts of means that other teachers, TFA, and the books suggested. However, my goal was to keep an orderly classroom, not meeting the student at his or her cultural difference and helping him or her adapt to the classroom environment.

I definitely agree with the Harry and Anderson when they say the challenge for teachers is “to identify the African American male student’s knowledge and skills, and to use those assets to build a bridge to the kinds of knowledge and skills needed for school success.” (p.610) I agree with Jenn when she said, “We need both systemic change and well-trained teachers to make academic success for African American students a reality.” This goes back to the earlier discussion with Elizabeth (Whitworth), Hillary (Mason), and Liz. The majority of new teachers, especially white female teachers, are unprepared to help students with diverse learning styles and cultural difference in the classroom. More training in these areas would definitely help, but so does the entire labeling process need to change. I really liked some of the recommendations from Harry and Anderson. Their first recommendation, “Label services rather than students”, is perfect in its simplicity. I believe in inclusion and that more teachers should be trained in how to instruct students with different needs. The other recommendation I am curious about is the sixth one: “Replace the current age-based annual promotion system with a system based on heterogeneous, smaller, and less time-limited classroom groupings.” Students may then be able to receive more attention and the specialized instruction they need. Also, in terms of behavior, I think this could be a great way to incorporate positive behavior reinforcements. Younger students need to see older students acting the way they should and older students need to be reminded about setting good examples for younger students.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

aaseligman 31 Jul 2007 00:01

I agree that we really need systemic change, and that simply looking at an over representation does not tell the whole story nor does it really address the problem. The main points I see are that learning disables and emtionally disturbed are totally different issues, yet we often treat them the same. I have had some students with real emotional issues or anger management problems, others who are dyslexic and they are put in the same special ed class. This just makes no sense when the conditions of the studnets are totally different. In a hospital they don't put the cardiac patients in with the cancer patients since hey, they're both sick, right? I think it's not a big surpsirse than that special ed classes don't cover the same material and often aren't nearly as effective as mainstream classes. Also this perpetuates and exacerbates the negative stigma—not only are you looked down upon for being special ed, others know that you must not be getting a very good education and that you're never going to catch up.
Because it really truly is difficult to know how to work with many of these students, it is also not so surprising that in Virginia, teachers often use the labels as a way to write offdifficult students. Oh, and if you didn't have enough difficulties being a special ed student, you can add in that people will question if you really do need help or are just poorly behaved, and teachers can't be sure if they can trust you or the referring teacher because it might be racially motivated. I'd be curious what it is like in diverse schools, since my entire school is African American I can't tell if students are over represented, clearly the males are, and males also drop out at higher rates, so did they drop out because they needed help and couldn't get it? Or because they were labeled special needs? I really don't know where to start, I think by first addressing the quality of special ed classes. Other ideas?

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

EWhitworth 28 Jul 2007 02:48

Regarding jnsarak's comment: We're failing black students in this country in general, and the particular injuries dealt by the special education system are simply symptoms of this larger problem.

This is a hugely significant statement - does everyone agree?

I do agree that a lot of schools out there are not reaching African American students in the classroom. However, 99% of the school I teach at is made up of African Americans and I know that everyone is doing all that they can to make sure that what we are teaching is personally meaningful and relevant to every students personal lives - that there is always something they can make a connection to; that the books and stories we read are culturally relevant and that we have a number of postive role models come into our classroom, from all over the city, to inspire them to always try their best. Sometimes, it is a constant battle to get my students to care about their learning. To understand why it is that we push them so hard, to always try their best and give 100%. At the same time, they are in 4th grade. They are so young. They are only children - but the message still needs to be heard.

I suppose my question is: is this enough? Sometimes I feel like it's never enough. What else can be done?

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

(account deleted) 31 Jul 2007 15:11

When I read through the introduction I was not drawn, as many of you were to raise questions about what diagnosis and testing looked like but rather I was intrigued by the final paragraph explaining how they reached the conclusion that African American males were overrepresented in special education. The term "overrepresented" is defined as the percentage of students in special education being 10% over the percentage of that group that exist in the general school population. With this in mind I would like to push back on Mike's statement that the disproportionate number of African American students in special education can be explained by the fact that African American families are also disproportionately living in poverty. While this statistic is not in doubt I do wish to apply it to a population that is close to home. Many, not all, of the DC public schools are 80%+ African American. My school, and many in my school's neighborhood, are 99% African American. Yet how many of our students, in these all black schools are enrolled in special education. I feel as though before a statement can be made to create parallels between poverty and special education inclusion, more research must be done. We should compare the percentage of students in sped in all black schools to the percentage of students in special education in more diverse schools and then compare the number of African American students with high income levels in special education. It may be that Mike is entirely correct, special education placement has more to do with economic class than race, but before that conclusion is drawn I would love to hear if anyone else has found any research to compare these situations.
Raising this concept of economics as a deciding factor in special education enrollment, I would like to re-examine the question Liz raised initially and jnsarak brought back up just a post before, under what circumstances is over-representation of African American youth in special education a problem. Obviously anytime one racial or ethnic group is represented in different numbers than any other, in proportion to the general population, we must examine the causes of that under or over representation. Perhaps it is the case that certain disabilities strike children of certain racial backgrounds in higher numbers, this may account for a imbalance in sped enrollment. I do not know if this is the case. In absence of this rare possibility, I can think of no circumstances in which over-representation of a certain ethnic group in special education is not a problem. If learning disabilities occur in an equal proportion of students across ethnic and racial lines, then special education enrollment should be equally distributed.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

minnie 23 Jul 2007 21:25

These articles are right on target. But I think there are some programs that are working to reduce the numbers of black boys in special ed, who are repeatedly suspended and end up not being well served by the educational system. A key problem is that student behavior that works in the streets doesn't work in the classroom. So schools need to institute structured programs that clearly define acceptable behavior in school. Teachers must received professional development in how to implement such a plan, so everyone is reading from the same script. At too many DCPS schools, teachers are left to their own devices when it comes to discipline. So a child may come to my class with a terrible attitude after being harangued by his previous teacher or an administrator. In Maryland, about one-third of the schools use the PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) program; it supposedly helps reduce the number of suspensions and increase standardized test scores. Students receive constant verbal reinforcement and little rewards for good behavior and positive actions. This is a research-based program that was created by a group of professors at the University of Oregon for special ed students. But later it spread to general ed classrooms.
Here's the website: http://www.pbis.org/main.htm

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

Susan Oliver 27 Jul 2007 19:40

Minnie, I think you brought up a great point about schools creating structured programs across every classroom, lunch room, and hallway so that students know exactly what is expected of them. You mentioned PBIS and how it has helped Maryland schools bring down their suspension numbers drastically. I believe in positively reinforcing positive behavior, and I have heard about PBIS. The school where I have worked for the past two years, Kelly Miller Middle School, never had a school-wide discipline plan. Part of this reason may be due to the changing of leadership each year. A group of teachers, led by Jeff Tomlinson, met over the summer to design a positive behavior support plan that the entire faculty could use starting at the beginning of the school year in order to set the behavior expectations loud and clear for the students. However, our new principal, as soon as she was hired that summer, met with the team and threw out the plan. She had her own school-wide discipline plan, so she said. We never set the rules at the beginning of the year, and as a result, the students ran the school for the majority of the year, igniting bombs in lockers, running the halls all day, and hitting teachers with no repercussions. I said all this just to reinforce the importance of creating positive structure for students. Just like you said, Minnie, the behavior that works in the streets does not work in the classrooms. We as a team of faculty and staff need to clearly show our students how they should act in school and what the consequences are when they choose otherwise. I truly believe that if more schools had such structures in place at the beginning of the school year, fewer students would act out, fewer students would be labeled SPED because of poor behavior, and there would be ultimately much fewer suspensions.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

jesstabak 28 Jul 2007 16:13

I agree with Susan and Minnie clear, school-wide discipline systems are essential to making behavior issues manageable in a school setting. The question, then, is why don't more schools have them?

I think the answer is on the PBIS Website when they say, "at least 80% of all staff must agree on the problems and the strategies to address them, and make a commitment to implement the strategies as planned." I'd add to that, in light of Susan's story and my own first year teaching experience, that you MUST have a principal and vice principal who are on board.

I don't think the problem, in the vast number of cases, is that some staff members think there should be no disciple structure or no rules, but that they can't agree on what those rules should be, how they should be implemented, and what the consequences should be for breaking them. And if teachers and administrators aren't on the same page with such an essential issue, the kids figure out pretty quickly how to use these differences of opinion to get away with behavior that's not acceptable at school, often pitting staff members against each other in the process.

I think the best way to fix this problem is for principals to really figure out where teachers' disciplinary ideologies fall before they hire them to make it much more likely that staff will more or less agree with how to go about establishing a school-wide behavioral plan. The problem with this, of course, is that so many schools are so understaffed that they don't get to be quite as selective as they should be, as well as the fact that teachers who have been there longer might not align with these systems but get "grandfathered" in anyway.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

EWhitworth 29 Jul 2007 00:02

I agree with all of you all about the school-wide behavior expectations, rules, and continually using positive reinforcement! My school does this and every child knows that no matter what teacher they are around, whether in class, in the hallways, in the cafeteria, etc. they know what is acceptable and what is not. This works great, and when kids know they did not follow the rules or did someting unacceptable, they can admit they made a bad choice, and move on instead of escalating the situation into a bigger problem. I am so glad that you all mentioned this and think that it is a great way to help all children, but especially African American males. I am just happy to know that the strategies we are currently using at my school - prove to be beneficial in ensuring academic and personal successes!

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

jnsarak 29 Jul 2007 15:44

This sounds almost identical to what happened at my school, Sousa Middle School. A group of teachers met over the summer to establish a comprehensive behavior system, a new principal was hired, she pushed back against the plan, she didn't institute her own, and the year was essentially lost from the first day of school. Positive structures right off the bat are everything.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

aaseligman 31 Jul 2007 00:07

That's true that we need structures, but there are also a lot of tough variables, as you found out with your principal. I often found that it didn't matter what the structures were, the point was to have consistent structures that everyone could keep up. There were a lot of good ideas we'd talk about in staff meetings but never implement, which got us no where. It's easy to plan things out or to talk about ideally what we'd do, but to execute it is something else. I observed several teachers with very strict behavior systems and I knew that I just couldn't physically keep up that tough edge for an entire class, nor could I do what others did with point systems and incentives. You identified the truly difficult thing, which is that we have the most political capital built up with our students on the first day of school, but we often don't know which systems are going to work until we try them out or see the students in action for a few weeks, and more importantly feel out how we as teachers will react, but by that point we've lost that chance to establish a system. It's a paradox I never figured out, and each semester I'd improve in some areas but a different group of students each time created a whole new set of challenges. I guess teachers who have been around in the same school for several years and know the students coming in must not have this problem as much, but in many of our schools with high turnover we don't have that luxury.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

ghughesstrange 31 Jul 2007 14:55

I feel like the posts are beginning to lose their focus from the overall discussion topic. As a addition to their discussion before switching gears, for any sort of behavior plan those deciding on the plan and those giving out the consequences must believe in it. There cannot be a division between teaches and administration which is what occurred at Sousa this past year and had horrible consequences.

Back to the topic… at my school it is very difficult to judge the representation of students in SPED. Overall I had 10 students out of about 100 who were SPED (10%), and this would be considered less then the percentage of black students in the nation. There is only one white student and one Hispanic student so there is no measure of disproportion.

Special education exists to benefit the students because of specific learning disabilities that require special attention to help the students. The fact that more students in lower income environments are being diagnosed into SPED programs is not fair because at this point SPED does not necessarily help the students but tracks them into a lower grouping of students.

New and different tests need to be established to help clarify the SPED category and the mentally retarded category so that cultural biases and social status is not taken into account. Doing this will be difficult because it could be argued that the current systems are there for a reason, but to be an equal nation for all it needs to happen.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

LuisTorres 31 Jul 2007 17:58

I read the articles and actually printed them out and distributed to my office workers. We actually had a really good discussion about social stereotyping and the effects of these sorts of judgments on the educational experiences of children. I take particular interest in sharing my thoughts on how Latino students are particularly affected by these sorts of things. It has been my experience that many Latino students I've worked with have been inappropriately placed in special education classes because of their varying levels of proficiency. When I began my teacher training in California, I worked with 5th year Seniors who had been placed in remedial and special ed courses throughout their high school despite not having learning disabilities but simply have different English proficiency levels. It angered me that these students were not given the support they needed to advance in their studies and that they were put in a classroom that was already understaffed and responsible for serving the legitimate needs of students with more severe needs. Many schools, as I discovered, received more funding for students classified as special education students and parents also receive funding and benefits if their child is enrolled in special education. It became apparent to me that corruption is a big part of this system and needs to change. I believe that there should be a streamlined system with professional counselors and educators handling the application and enrollment process. The system should not be specifically typed to student enrollment but to specific needs.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

Mike Lederman 02 Aug 2007 00:30

The issue with Latinos and other non-native English speakers and special education is an interesting one. I think it definitely speaks to the question Sarah asked earlier about the age of the article. One million immigrants have come to the United States in the past 30 years, most of them Hispanic/Latino and from non-English speaking countries. Washington D.C. alone has gone from 1 in 22 foreign born in 1970 to 1 in 5 today (Washingtonian, October 2006). Surly, research on whether Non-native English speakers are being placed disproportionately in special education is further behind than research on African Americans (and was even more so 12 years ago when our article was written). But, if the actual numbers do show an overrepresentation, it would certainly build a stronger case against the legitimacy of the special education system in this country. Not speaking a language is clearly no reason to be labeled LD!

Also, I’m glad Luis brought up the issue of parents receiving money if their children are in special education… can anyone else speak to this? Does anyone know how much money a parent gets per month and what factors are considered by the government when they are dolling out these checks? How long has this been the policy? Is it a District Law only or common to school districts across the country? I have actually had students say, “Oh, he’s only in special education so his parents can get the check in the mail.” There is definitely a lot of room for corruption here, and this could certainly be a factor in the overrepresentation of lower socioeconomic groups in special education.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

terrakathleen 02 Aug 2007 05:02

Luis, I think that you bring up an excellent point about the overrepresentation of Latinos in Special Education placements. I just wanted to provide a link to one of the wiki pages that I made for this class. It focuses on an article about the difficulties of diagnosing communication disorders among culturally and linguistically diverse students, specifically English Language Learners. Although the article talks about communication disorders, I think that the important points apply to diagnosis of learning disabilities as well. I think this is especially important because the diagnosis of both communication disorders and learning disabilities are very subjective and tend to use deviation from the norm as the standard for referral. If tests are administered in English to students who are not proficient, how can they serve as an accurate measure?

The page is here: http://sped.wikidot.com/communication-disorders-in-culturally-and-linguistically-diverse-students. You can find a link to the actual article in the bibliography at the bottom of the page.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

csabados 02 Aug 2007 22:45

I think Luis and Mike point to an interesting issue, money, with regards to special education placement. When I read the article, I could not help but think of the peculiar situation that DC is in with regards to special education and finances. This article just talks about one issue - namely, the enormous cost of sending students who can't get services in the District to private schools - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/04/AR2006060400973.html. Essentially, DC has established a system where they routinely fail to meet the needs of children, they get sued, they lose, and they end up spending a lot of money to send them somewhere else. I was unable to find a source to confirm this, but I have heard estimates that nationally, DC alone represents 22% of special education costs. This not only has grave consequences for special education students, but for all students.
I believe that DCPS instituted the SST process as a way to minimize the number of referrals. The national average is 13% for special education placement, and DC is 18%. Unfortunately, as Jess pointed out, the SST process is very cumbersome for DCPS schools, to implement.

Re: Group Three Threaded Discussion on Equity

lizmcouat 03 Aug 2007 03:05

While few people would argue that funding to provide students with the services they need and deserve is an issue in DC and the nation as a whole, the article made me think a lot about teacher preparation.

“…the preparation teachers receive for working with diverse learners is crucial.” (p.610)

I would agree and find it interesting that Special Education, after teaching in an inclusion model in DC is one of the last courses we take.(Did AQUE students not getting the master’s take a Special Education course?)

“…teachers are driven by the structure of schools, which calls for control, homogeneity, and the inculcation of socially sanctioned behaviors and language.” (p.610)

There are not a lot of discussions around culturally diverse language and behaviors other then in negative ones generally around students not using Standard English in academics and behavioral outbursts.

“Of primary concern is the issue of who provides the services.”… “An earlier OSEP (1990) report noted that African American students were receiving increasingly more instruction in separate classroom settings and were being taught increasingly by paraprofessional or substitute teachers, many of whom had no certification or training in special education. “ (p.614)

Many of us in the AQUE program spent two years teaching students in inclusion settings, without special education help (or at least consistent quality special educators), emergency certifications and little to no training in special education.

“…disproportion is a problem when children receive low quality instruction.” (p.606)

After reading the article I can’t help but feel pains of guilt, that properly placed or not I contributed (albeit unconsciously) to the very problems the article discusses. Did my African American male students walk in my door already at a disadvantage because I was their teacher- under trained, uneducated and unaware?