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DISPROPORTIONATE REPRESENTATION:
ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS
Updated in March/April 2006
Titles are presented in alphabetical order.
Addressing the Disproportionate Representation of Culturally
and Linguistically Diverse Students in Special Education
Through Culturally Responsive Educational Systems
Education Policy Analysis Archives. (2005). J. Klingner, A. J. Artiles, E. Kozleski, B. Harry, S. Zion, W. Tate, G. Z. Duran, & D. Riley.
The authors state, that “in this article, we present a conceptual framework for addressing the disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education. The cornerstone of our approach to addressing disproportionate representation is through the creation of culturally responsive educational systems. Our goal is to assist practitioners, researchers, and policy makers in coalescing around culturally responsive, evidence-based interventions and strategic improvements in practice and policy to improve students’ educational opportunities in general education and reduce inappropriate referrals to and placement in special education.”
Full text: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v13n38/
Are Schools Ready for Joshua?
Dimensions of African American Culture Among Students Identified as
Having Behavioral/Emotional Disorders
Summary of a study by G. Webb-Johnson. Data Trends. (2004).
Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children’s Mental Health.
Portland State University
“This ethnographic study addresses the overrepresentation of African American youth referred for academic instruction in classes for learners identified as having behavioral/emotional disorders. The author suggests ways to understand culturally socialized behaviors and to use more culturally responsive pedagogy.”
Summary – Scroll to #101: http://www.rtc.pdx.edu/pgDataTrends2004.shtml
Determining Appropriate Referrals of English Language Learners to Special Education:
A Self-Assessment Guide for Principals
National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) and the IDEA Local Implementation by Local Administrators (ILIAD) Partnership,
Council for Exceptional Children, Arlington, Virginia. (2003).
This guide “assists in understanding and addressing the impact of special education referral and classification on English language learners. It covers key issues such as: determining whether your school has an over-representation (or under-representation) of English language learners in special education; improving communication with English-language learners and their families; and use of Teacher Assistance Teams. It offers information on assessment, eligible, IEP development, and professional development. Includes sample forms for interviewing in English and Spanish, and self-assessment checklists for evaluating programs.”
For purchase -- Scroll down:
http://www.cec.sped.org/bk/catalog2/resources.html
Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline
NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc, New York City. (2005).
This report calls “the school-to-prison pipeline one of the most urgent challenges of education today.” It covers data on suspensions, expulsions, and their results for children; discrepancies and underfunding in the education system; the consequences of grade retention; and solutions and alternatives to the prison route. The Legal Defense and Education Fund’s work with advocacy groups in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and New York City are highlighted. The web pages include several related documents.
Full text – Scroll down: http://www.naacpldf.org/landing.aspx?sub=56
Disproportionality and Discipline Among Indiana's Students
With Disabilities: A Status Report
Indiana Education Policy Center, Indiana University. (2001). “Disproportionate representation of minorities in special education has been and continues to be a central concern for the field. Although the presence of minority overrepresentation has been well documented, it is fair to say that the full complexity of the problem has not yet been fully understood, nor is there a clear picture of the causes of disproportionality. This report is the second phase of a study conducted by the Indiana Education Policy Center for the Indiana Department of Education Division of Special Education on the status of minority disproportionality in special education in Indiana, and on the disciplinary provisions of IDEA 1997.” Full text – Scroll down: http://www.indiana.edu/%7Esafeschl/minor.html
Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track The Advancement Project in partnership with Padres and Jovenes Unidos, Southwest Youth Collaborative, and the Children & Family Justice Center of Northwestern University School of Law (2005).
This report is a follow-up to Derailed: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track, which was published in 2003. It “further investigates the nationwide trend toward using zero tolerance polices in schools as a ‘take no prisoners’ approach to dealing with the most trivial acts of student misconduct. The report also examines how students of color are disproportionately affected by these policies.” A Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Action Kit is available at the same site.
Full text -- Scroll down for the 2005 and 2003 reports and Action Kit:
http://www.advancementproject.org/publications.html#opsusp
Losing Our Future: How Minority Youth Are Being Left Behind
by the Graduation Rate Crisis
The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. (2004).
G. Orfield, D. Losen, & J. Wald, & C. B. Swanson
This report examines the “dangerously high percentage of students—disproportionately poor and minority—disappear from the educational pipeline before graduating from high school. Nationally, only about 68 percent of all students who enter 9th grade will graduate “on time” with regular diplomas in 12th grade. While the graduation rate for white students is 75 percent, only approximately half of Black, Hispanic , and Native American students earn regular diplomas alongside their classmates. Graduation rates are even lower for minority males. Yet, because of misleading and inaccurate reporting of dropout and graduation rates, the public remains largely unaware of this educational and civil rights crisis.”
Executive summary and click for full report:
http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/dropouts/dropouts04.php
Minority Disproportionality and the Achievement Gap:
Common Issues, Shared Solutions
Teleconference by Anthony Sims, Institute for Educational Leadership. (2005).
National Center for Secondary Education and Transition.
University of Minnesota
This is the complete transcript of an NCSET teleconference held in March 2005. The printed transcript is accompanied by an accessible PowerPoint presentation that is referenced in the discussion. The presenter says, “I use this term ‘students placed at risk’ . . . because I contend that we have to recognize that when we say ‘at-risk students,’ we sometimes miss an important distinction around the fact that certain groups of students are placed at greater risk for educational failure because of some of the social variables that we cannot control but also because of a myriad of educational institutional variables that place those students at risk for school failure.”
Full text and PowerPoint:
http://www.ncset.org/teleconferences/transcripts/2005_03b.asp
Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education
National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences. (2002).
Published by National Academy Press. M. S. Donovan & C. T. Cross (Eds.).
Washington, DC
This report presents findings on racial inequities, with recommendations for rethinking current approaches for: (a) eligibility determination; (b) use of high-quality interventions in reading, writing, math, social behavior, and emotional regulation; (c) teacher quality; (d) addressing risk factors in early childhood: (e) improving data collection; and (f) other aspects of general and special education that need improvement. For purchase or downloads.
Download by sections/skims: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309074398/html/
On the Nexus of Race, Disability, and Overrepresentation:
What Do We Know? Where Do We Go?
On Point Series, National Institute for Urban School Improvement. (2001).
University of Colorado, Denver. (2004).
G. Meyer & J. M. Patton
This paper reviews data on the problem of over-representation of children of color in special education; what is understood about it; the roots of the issue; understandings about diversity, culture, and the nature of difference. Then it leads to conclusions and what can be done about over-representation and future directions for the field. An extensive reading list is included.
Full text -- Scroll down at right: http://www.urbanschools.org/publications/on_point.htm
Preventing Disproportionate Representation:
Culturally and Responsive Prereferral Interventions: Practitioner Brief
National Center for Culturally Responsive Education Systems. (2004).
University of Colorado, Denver.
S. B. Garcia & A. A. Ortiz. (2004)
The authors "highlight four elements of culturally- and linguistically-responsive prereferral intervention for culturally and linguistically diverse learners. These elements are: (a) preventing underachievement and failure; (b) early intervention for struggling learners; (c) diagnostic/prescriptive teaching; and (d) availability of general education problem-solving supports systems."
Full text – Scroll down: http://www.nccrest.org/publications/briefs.html
Race, Ethnicity, and Economic Well-Being
Snapshots of American Families Series
The Urban Institute, Washington DC. (2004). K. Finegold & L. Wherry.
“Data from the 2002 round of the National Survey of America's Families show that poverty rates dropped to 23 percent for blacks, 25 percent for Hispanics, and 8 percent for whites between 1996 and 2001. Forty-four percent of Hispanics experienced food hardship in 2002 compared with 38 percent of blacks and 17 percent of whites. In 2002, 24 percent of blacks, 20 percent of Hispanics, and 10 percent of whites experienced housing hardship.”
Full text: http://www.urban.org/publications/310969.html
The Academic Identities and School Behaviors of African American Boys Being Evaluated for Special Education (Study in Progress)
Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
J. Lewis & Colleagues
“The proposed exploratory case study will examine how African American boys being considered for referral for special education evaluation, are variously viewed by themselves, special education referral personnel, and significant adults in their lives. Focusing on special education prereferral interventions—processes and procedures in which racial disparities become particularly salient—and on a critical transition period (Grades 3–5), the project will give particular attention to views of participating boys’ individual and social identities as learners, attitudes toward school, and academic behaviors throughout the special education prereferral period.”
Details and contact information:
http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/projects/projects.php?project_num=255
The Closing of the Education Frontier
Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey. (2002).
P. Barton
The author “presents illuminating data challenging the conventional wisdom that educational attainment has continued to increase during the last quarter century. He paints a picture of an educational system that is not producing more high school graduates, that continues to display great social inequality, and that is not able to support greater proportions of students through to degrees in four-year college programs. . . . He suggests that we may have, wittingly or unwittingly, developed incentive structures that prevent us from continuing the increase in educational attainment that characterized the greater part of the last century.”
Full text:
http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.c988ba0e5dd572bada20bc47c3921509/
?vgnextoid=4b10af5e44df4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD&vgnextchannel=
5c75be3a864f4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD
The Color of Discipline: Sources of Racial and Gender Disproportionality in School Punishment
Indiana Education Policy Center, Indiana University. (2000). R. J. Skiba,
R. S. Michael, A. C. Nardo, & R. Peterson.
The researchers state that “disproportionate representation of minority students, especially African Americans, in a variety of school disciplinary procedures has been documented almost continuously for the past 25 years, yet there has been little study of the factors contributing to that disproportionality. Whether disparate treatment of a group can be judged as bias depends largely on the extent to which other hypotheses that could provide a credible alternative explanation of the discrepancy can be ruled out. In this study, investigation of three alternative hypotheses led to different conclusions for disproportionate representation based on gender, race, and socioeconomic status. First, racial and gender discrepancies in school disciplinary outcomes were consistent regardless of methodology, but socioeconomic disparities appeared to be somewhat less robust. Second, we found no evidence that racial disparities disappear when controlling for poverty status; instead, disproportionality in suspension appears to be due to prior disproportionality in referrals to the office. Finally, although discriminant analysis suggests that disproportionate rates of office referral and suspension for boys are due to increased rates of misbehavior, no support was found for the hypothesis that African American students act out more than other students. Rather, African American students appear to be referred to the office for less serious and more subjective reasons.”
Full text – Scroll down: http://www.indiana.edu/%7Esafeschl/publication.html
The Context of Minority Disproportionality:
Local Perspectives on Special Education Referral
Indiana Education Policy Center, Indiana University. (2003).
R. J. Skiba, A.B. Simmons, S. Ritter, K. Kohler, M. Henderson, & T. Wu.
“This report describes an intensive study undertaken across 14 schools within seven Indiana school corporations to improve our understanding of the factors that may contribute to the disproportionate referral and placement of minority students in special education. (The researchers) interviewed 66 educators—teachers, principals, school psychologists, and special education directors—about their perspectives. (They) spoke with them on the challenges faced in urban education, on the process of special education, on resources both available and needed, and on the specific topics of diversity and disproportionality. Analysis of the rich data that resulted from those conversations led to a number of clear themes.”
Full text – Scroll down: http://www.indiana.edu/%7Esafeschl/minor.html
The Flynn Effect and U.S. Policies. The Impact of Rising IQ Scores on American Society Via Mental Retardation Diagnoses
American Psychologist. (2003). T. Kanaya, M. H. Scullin, & S. J. Ceci. American Psychological Association, Washington DC. “The steady rising of IQ scores over the last century – known as the Flynn effect – causes IQ tests norms to become obsolete over time. To counter this effect, IQ tests are ‘renormed’ (made harder) every 15-20 years by resetting the mean score to 100 to account for the previous gains in IQ scores. But according to new research, such renorming may have unintended consequences, particularly in the area of special education placements for children with borderline or mild mental retardation. The findings are reported on in the October 2003 issue of American Psychologist,” Full text – Scroll down to end of press release:http://www.apa.org/releases/flynneffect2.html
The Role of Reading Instruction in Addressing the Overrepresentation of Minority Children in Special Education in the United States A Position Statement of the International Reading Association, Washington DC. (2003). “The International Reading Association (IRA) is concerned that lack of appropriate reading instruction and early interventions among low-performing minority children contributes to their overrepresentation in special education programs. (IRA) advocates for effective early reading instruction for all children and for intervention before children are referred to special education. Attention to such issues as ineffective classroom instruction, lack of coordination across programs and teachers, and the frequent overlooking of children’s culturally relevant language skills will help to reduce the number of unnecessary special education referrals for minority students. The position statement includes additional recommendations expressly for the U.S. federal and state governments, school districts, classroom teachers, Title I teachers and reading specialists, special educators, principals, teacher educators and professional developers, and parents.”
Full text: http://www.reading.org/resources/issues/positions_minorities.html
Disproportionate Representation
March/April Highlights from the RKR Library,
A Companion Collection
SCHOOLWIDE MODELS AND CURRICULA: REVIEWSCatalog of School Reform Models Comprehensive School Reform Models: Middle Grades Scroll down for both at: http://www.ideapartnership.org/report.cfm?reportid=113
INITIATIVES OF SINGLE STATES AND INTERSTATE INITIATIVESIndiana Disproportionality Project, Indiana Department of Education and Indiana State University. Prereferral Research Studies: Diverse Student Populations, Minnesota Department of Education. Scroll down for both at: http://www.ideapartnership.org/report.cfm?reportid=148
This information is an attempt to gather wide-ranging information in one place, to convey what others have accomplished, and to make valuable resources readily accessible. Information is presented in the language of the developer, publisher, distributor, or author. The Southeast Regional Resource Center has no ownership of anything described in this library.
Readers should review the copyright and distribution policies shown at the websites of the sources. SERRC is not the source of any document in this library, but simply conveys information to show the availability of these resources.
The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position of policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and no endorsement of the U.S. Department of Education should be inferred. Information from sources funded by the U.S. Department of Education is likely to have been vetted by the Department; information from other sources is unlikely to have been vetted.
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