New Research on Minorities and Special Education:
Implications for Federal Law and Policy
A Forum — March 2, 2001
With the 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), Congress required that all students, regardless of their disability status, get the support they need to meet high educational standards. Inherent in this requirement is the responsibility for states and school districts to address any lingering discrimination within special education classification, curricula, or funding. One significant indication of such lingering discrimination is the disproportionately high number of minority students in special education. The Harvard Civil Rights Project and the American Youth Policy Forum co-sponsored a presentation of new research on minorities and special education to educate policymakers on this issue.
Darren Woodruff, a Senior Research Analyst at the American Institutes for Research (AIR), reported that African American students represent 16 percent of the school population, but they represent 21 percent of the enrollments in special education. Woodruff argued that this is simply one stage in the "systems of progressive risk" facing minority youth. African American children represent 25 percent of youth identified by schools as having emotional and behavioral disorders, 30 percent of the cases in juvenile court, and 40 percent of youth in juvenile detention. Although community risk factors including a lack of economic resources and exposure to violence/substance abuse place many minority youth at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders, Woodruff believes that school discipline initiatives such as the "zero tolerance" policy contribute to the systems of progressive risk facing minority youth. His school-based solutions to this problem include: training and evaluation of positive classroom management techniques, recognition and rewards systems, conflict resolution and peer mediation, as well as integration of special education students into mainstream schools and classes whenever possible. For policymakers, Woodruff believes that school districts, states, and the federal government should collect data on minority student disciplinary referrals and suspension rates and "fund counselors, social workers, and other mental health professionals to . . . develop early and intensive student supports."
With a background in economics, Tom Parrish, a Managing Research Scientist at AIR, was also interested in the funding implications of disproportionate classification of minority students in special education. Like Woodruff, Parrish found that minority students are more likely than white students to be placed in special education classes, especially in the category of "mental retardation." Across the nation, African American children were nearly three times more likely than white students to be classified as mentally retarded. In Mississippi, South Carolina, and Connecticut, they were approximately four times more likely to be categorized as mentally retarded than white students. Yet Parrish says that the problem is not limited to inaccurate identification of minority students. "Special education formulas that vary funding based on category of disability appear to show a troubling link with over-identifying and under-funding minority students," according to Parrish. He also noted that white students have more access to public funds that support costly, private residential facilities for special education. Based on these observations, he recommended that policymakers should track both over-classification of minority students and funding disparities in special education.
Along with the issues of classification and funding, minimum competency tests for promotion and/or graduation—what some critics have called "High Stakes Tests"—also have a profound impact on the academic prospects of minority students and children in special education. According to Jay Heubert, an Associate Professor of Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, the stakes are high with tests for promotion to the next grade, because grade promotion is the strongest predictor of which students will drop out of school, stronger than race, ethnicity, or socio-economic status. Students with disabilities are 35-40 percent more likely to fail these "high stakes" tests than their peers in mainstream classes. Heubert contends that this is "clearly unacceptable for these students and for our society," and he argues that additional academic supports are necessary for these students to bring up pass rates and graduation rates.
Former Director of Special Education at the U.S. Department of Education, Tom Hehir concluded the presentations with a discussion of the 1997 reauthorization of IDEA and the Department of Education’s efforts to ensure equal educational opportunity for all special education students. In contrast to the over-identification of minorities for mental retardation and other areas of special education needs, Hehir pointed out that there has been a troubling trend of over-identification of white high school students as having minor learning disabilities, in part, because they then receive special accommodations on college entrance exams such as the SAT and ACT. This was a small part of the larger problem facing the Department of Education in attempting to enforce equal opportunity for all special education students. Unfortunately, Hehir noted that only forty people staff the enforcement division in the Office of Special Education. The stronger wording of the reauthorization of IDEA in 1997 guaranteeing support for all students to meet high standards has made the difficult task of enforcement slightly easier. Yet Hehir believes that states have a role to play in supporting federal mandates for equal educational opportunity in "establishing performance goals for students with disabilities but making sure that these students are able to meet these goals and standards." Monitoring and addressing dropout rates are two of the ways that he believes states can protect students from the potential negative consequences of stronger standards and high stakes testing.
All of the presenters emphasized the importance not only of monitoring over-identification of minority students in special education, but also in taking pro-active steps to address this racial disparity. For the students who are accurately categorized as needing special education, the researchers suggested that the recent thrust of enacting high standards of academic achievement will benefit these students only if they are given the necessary academic support to meet the new high standards.
The reports that formed the basis of these presentations are available on line at www.law.harvard.edu/civilrights.
This brief is from an American Youth Policy Forum held on March 2, 2001 on Capitol Hill reported by Steve Estes.
The American Youth Policy Forum is a non-profit, nonpartisan professional development organization for professionals working on youth policy issues at the national, state and local levels. AYPF attempts to present various perspectives on issues that bridge youth policy, practice and research. The opinions of our forum speakers are not necessarily those of AYPF.
AYPF’s events and policy reports are made possible by the support of a consortium of philanthropic foundations: Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, Ford Motor Company Fund, General Electric Fund, William T. Grant Foundation, George Gund Foundation, Walter S. Johnson Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Charles S. Mott Foundation, NEC Foundation of America, Wallace-Reader’s Digest Funds, and others.