Too many, too few

Too Many, Too Few

One of the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is that significant disproportionality of minorities in special education programs needs to be reported and addressed.   Truthfully, that requirement always troubled me because it took away from what is supposed to be an individual program.  So why not increase the requirement that assessments be culture free to ensure that all children are appropriately identified and provided with the individual education program that the law requires.  

Instead, enforcement has taken a very simplistic approach.  If there are 13% minority children in a district then there should be no more than 13% minority kids receiving special ed services. As usual simple solutions are just that simple.  As a consequence trending data are showing a dramatic decrease in African American and Hispanic children receiving service and a growing increase in the disability rate of white children.  Since these are just data figures, we don't know if kids are missing out on the service they deserve.

Now there appears to be a growing body of research that is seriously challenging these simple ideas.  Where children attended school seemed to be a prime indicator of who would be diagnosed with a disability.  But the results were sort of counter-intuitive.  Researchers looked at children based on factors OTHER than race. Instead they used birth weight, the educational level of the mother, and/or complications during delivery as some of the factors.  Black and Hispanic children were more likely to be identified with a disability if they attended a school that was majority white.  AND much LESS likely to be identified if they attended a school that was majority minority.  One of the reasons offered for these findings is that mostly white schools were more likely to have services to offer all children.  Whereas mostly minority schools did not have the services and under the law, if a child needs a service it must be provided whether or not the school can afford it.  Another interesting finding was that white children were more often identified as having a disability in schools that were mostly minority and that white families fought for their children to receive service even in schools with limited provision. The most predictive factors for all students were poverty, the school the child attended and scores on standard tests.   Another interesting wrinkle in the studies is that some disabilities are considered to have higher status than others and are often more likely to be diagnosed for children with higher social economic status independent of race or ethnicity.  So autism, speech disorders or other health impaired (usually used for ADHD) were more likely to be applied to higher socio-economic groups; while intellectual disabilities and emotional/behavior disorders were more often applied to lower socio-economic groups.

Asking states to do a better job of sorting out proportionality is not likely to happen any time soon.   Just too much trouble.  So how many are too many and how many are too few- simple question, complicated answer.