A detailed study on the article entitled “Is Disproportionally High Minority Representation in Special Education a School Problem?” reveals the concern of the differences that are seen in the representation of minority factions in the special education agenda against that of the common core syllabus in educational institutions. The article explains how the U.S. Federal policies helps different school districts and states institute strategies to avoid this disproportionality and to initiate efforts to lessen the current disproportion problems. Nevertheless to say, much of the terminologies used to explain this regulation is ambiguous and thus the states get powers to interpret and enforce the same as per their specific requirements. This often …show more content…
Fergus reaches this conclusion after organizing a study for many years at about 30 school districts. He collected all available data and the detailed scrutiny of the data gives some insight to evaluate the reasons for the disproportionality issue. The study shows that there are void spaces to be filled up in the core syllabus and in many of the teaching methodologies. The research identified that when the syllabus changed too frequently and to a great extent, the students show a tendency to be upgraded to the new system. Often children with learning disabilities suffer a lot in such situations. Their limited resources make it extremely difficult to cope up with the frequently changing methodologies. In most of the cases the teachers are not aware about how to resolve and avoid disproportionality from arising in the classroom. Another prominent finding made by the study is the defect in the steadiness of the pre-referral procedure adopted in school education system. In many a times during the study, the overuse of data sheets and files reduced the acceptability of the process and made it perplexing and unproductive. It has also been noted that many teachers often underestimate their students’ capabilities. This is more evident in their approach towards racial minority groups who emerge from low income strata of the society. However, Fergus thinks that …show more content…
He thinks that the unavailability of basic needs, bad peer influence, problems to identify a livelihood affects the emotional stability and personality development of a child. A struggling parent is what the child sees around and that affects the mindset of the child herself. The child eventually gets poor chances to be educated well and most probably the kid ends up with some sort of learning disabilities. Richard Rothstein explains that the theories of Fergus are mere “racist” sort of interpretation of the real problems faced by children due to economic instability. He suggested that Fergus’ arguments are more focused on blaming the schools for the issue rather than addressing the core issues. Rothstein tries to explain that the socio-cultural peer influence has an equal or even magnified role to play while addressing the issue. He thus argues that instructors or the school authorities cannot resolve this issue alone and that public leaders need to take initiative to make progress in the society to make the situation better in every
While differentiating instruction and being able to design lessons geared towards the needs of diverse learners are currently highly prized skills for teachers, this has not always been the case. The history of education in the United States is a history of segregation. Even today, schools and curriculum are designed to meet the needs of a core group of students, which does not include students with disabilities (Hitchcock, Meyer, Rose, & Jackson, 2002). In the past, learners who were different, out of the mainstream, or did not fit into the mold to which teachers taught (were not part of the core) learned how or lost out on learning. This is not to say that teachers of the past did not care about their students, about being effective teachers, or about student learning. However, as schools are mirrors reflecting mainstream societal norms (Chartock, 2010; Delpit, 2006)—and, given that our society has not always valued diversity in people, be it due to disability, class, culture, or race—teachers in the past have largely focused their efforts where they could earn the largest return on their investment: the average student .
Disproportionality, in special education, is the overrepresentation or under-representation of a particular population or demographic group relative to their presence in the overall student population (Ralabate, & Klotz, 2007). There are many factors thought to contribute to disproportionality: cultural differences, lack of appropriate assessment strategies, socioeconomic status, race, and gender (Kanaitsa, 2010).
The theme of the research is to discover why there is such a vast educational gap between minority and Caucasian students. Many American are unaware that such an educational gap actually exists among today’s students. This article informs us of alarming statics, such as of African American students representing a majority of the special education population, despite only making up roughly 40% of the student population. It also breaks down key events that contributed to the poor education that minority children are currently receiving. For example, in the past, it was illegal to educate African Americans and when it became legal to blacks were treated as second class students. They were segregated from their white counter parts and given hand-me-down textbooks. This article also discusses others factors that contributed to the poor education of minority students such as moral principles, socio-political, and economic stat. Despite the amount of time that has past, today’s schools are similar to the past. Minority children are still in second-rate learning environments while white students enjoy the comforts of first class school buildings and textbooks. In summary, the theme of this article was to bring attention to the educational gap among African-American, Latino, Asian, and other non-white students.
A longstanding national issue that continues to concern the public is the disproportionate representation of children from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds in special education. The fact is that the proportion of minority students in the population of school-age children has risen dramatically to over 35%, which is increasing the diversity of students in many public schools throughout the nation. This makes the phenomenon of disproportionality especially troubling. With a growing population of minority children comprising a greater percentage of public school students, we must be responsive to the growing needs of an increasingly diverse society. The overrepresentation of minority students in special education has been posed as an issue for more than 3 decades, but it is worth asking whether the efforts of legislative actions, educational reforms and legal challenges have really made improvements to this issue. More importantly, disproportionality should be examined as a correlation to underlying conditions that can pose a great effect upon not only the quality of a child’s education, but also ______.
Harry, B., & Klingner, J. (2006). Why are so many minority students in special education? Understanding race and disability in schools. New York and London: Teachers College, Columbia University.
Sullivan, A. L. (2011). The 'Standard'. Disproportionality in Special Education: Identification and Placement of English Language Learners. Exceptional Children, 77(3), 317-334.
Schools in today’s society are rapidly changing and growing striving to implement the best practices in their schools. Nonetheless, before a school can implement a program in their school, they need reliable evidence that the new program will work. A new program that schools are aiming to implement is inclusion in the classroom because of the benefits inclusion could bring. The implementation of inclusion is strongly connected by people’s attitudes whether they are positive or negative. However, while inclusion is being widely implemented, there is comparatively little data on its effectiveness. It may be that inclusion benefits some areas such as reading and social skills, more than it does others.
Kay Wilson, Age: 67, Special Education Aid, Resident of Lawrence County, General Life Through Segregation.
People might advocate to make schools and other sites of education safe spaces for all people regardless of the issues of identity by teaching about minority groups. Representation of minority groups matter and can create a positive impact. The Handbook of Gender and Communication states, ”Media, in short, are central to what ultimately come to represent our social realities" (Brooks, D., & Hebert, L. 2006). Media is a huge part of people’s lives. Nowadays, media is being integrated more than ever into the classroom.
In addition to inequitable treatment, disproportionality is also viewed as a problem because some believe that special education services are not effective in terms of student outcomes (Hosp, 2008). The RTI in its quest to address the issue of overrepresentations ensured that assessment instruments used are curriculum based and are non-biased. Students all received effective instruction in tier and the whole idea behind providing instruction in this way is to allow for the teacher to step up the intensity of instruction at the different tiers in order to minimize or prevent fewer students of minorities moving into special
Not every students learn the same way, some students are slow learner. In cases like this schools need to provide special education such as ELL or ESL, however this will cost more but it will give those students equal resources and
Inclusion of all students in classrooms has been an ongoing issue for the past twenty-five years (Noll, 2013). The controversy is should special education students be placed in an inclusion setting or should they be placed in a special education classroom? If the answer is yes to all special education students being placed in inclusion, then how should the inclusion model look? Every students is to receive a free an appropriate education. According to the Individual Education Act (IDEA), all students should be placed in the Least Restrictive Learning Environment (Noll, 2013).
Within the United States, students have the right and opportunity to receive a free, appropriate public education. This law gives all individuals with disabilities the right to receive an education in which they are entitled to special education services but there is a major issue with misrepresentation of minority students who receive these special education services. The sub category of English Language Learners and the over representation in special education is a growing problem in education and as the United States is becoming more diverse, the over identification of these individuals needs to be monitored and education policy needs to be addressed. “The term over identification is often used to define a group of individuals who may be
According to an article on gov.scot, “In 2015 there were 679,840 pupils in publicly funded schools. The number has risen from 676,955 in 2014.” As the quantity of pupils to be taught is on the rise, teachers struggle to cope. When there are several tests to mark for numerous different large classes, this can take up a lot of a teacher’s spare time. Pupils quickly push their teachers anxiously awaiting results after tests.
The issue of minority representation in special education came into the forefront for educators, parents and politicians during the mid 1990’s. In 1992, Black students accounted for 16 percent of the total U.S. student population, but represented 32 percent of students in programs for mild mental retardation, 29 percent in programs for moderate mental retardation, and 24 percent in programs for serious emotional disturbance (Robertson, Kushner, Starks, & Dreschler, 1994). This overrepresentation of Black and other minority students in special education is an ongoing national problem. This problem will be addressed according to the following criteria regarding minority representation in special education.