Disproportionality in Special Education

Definition
Disproportionality means that there are more (or fewer) children from a
particular group who are experiencing a given situation than we would expect,
based on the groups representation of the general population.
If identification creates some benefit or imposes stigma, this implies that the
system is discriminatory.
(Oswald & Coutinho)

The underlying problems that produce disproportionality:

*Unequal opportunities for many children of color based on
consequences of structural poverty
*Discriminatory treatment of students of color in gen ed.

*Referral, assessment and identification process for Sped.

Risk Index and Risk Ratio in Sample School District

Racial/Ethnic

Enrollment

White
African American
Hispanic
Multi-Racial
Asian

5,600
3,000
1,000
300
100

Students in Sped.
870
910
150
60
10

Risk of Special
16%
30%
15%
20%
10%

Race, Class and Disproportionality

National Research Council defined (in 2002) the impact of poverty in
explaining the overrepresentation of minority students in special ed.
Authors of article
Carla OConnor- Dean of Academic Affairs, Michigan State University,
Professor of Sociology.
Sonia Deluca Fernandez-Dean of Research and Assessment, NYU.

The report offered a latent theory of compromised development which indicated

that minority students are more likely to be poor and that being poor heightens
their exposure to risk factors that compromise human development and increase
the need for special services.

Race, Poverty &

Disproportionality
Authors argue that this theory, which they refer to as the Theory of Compromised
Human Development (TCHD) is an oversimplified conceptualization of
development and consequently mis-specifies that which places minority
students at heightened risk for special education placement.

Questioning Normative Frames

In the U.S., middle-class Whites provide the referent against which other
children are evaluated.
Those who perform markedly differently from the referent will be labeled
impaired and in need of special services.
A child cannot be assessed in the absence of a comparison between her and a
set of children who do not demonstrate similar difficulties. Negating cultural
difference.

Evaluating the Role of Schools

NRC report explains the notion of early biological and environmental
experience (of poverty) is critical contributor - relegating schools to mediate
traits of risks associated with SES.

Other authorities state poor children as a consequence of early harms or

risk factors associated with SES develop a higher incidence of impairments
that are manifest as latent traits for disability, but will remain dormant when
there is appropriate intervention.
Thus distorted conceptualization of risk morphs into an internalized trait (as a
consequence of how poverty presumably produces deficient developmental
expressions).

Not poverty, but normative culture of school that places poor

children at risk.
These same developmental expressions would signal competencies (and not deficits)
if they were situated with an evaluative context that established challenges to which
they were appropriate for the purpose.
Example: if AAVE (African American Vernacular English) became the standard
discourse Black and lower SES would find themselves recharacterized as
academically competent and highly literate, experiencing success in school relative

to the White middle-class.

Role of Schools
These students are defined by what they are not rather than what they are.
Schools marginalize their developmental expressions and fail to build on the
capacities they come to school with.

Not the lack of parenting practices, but of schools arbitrary standards that are
not culturally neutral.
Teachers perceive black males as a threat and black students get more referrals
than white students.

. .there is nothing about poverty in and of itself that places poor children at
academic risk; it is a matter of how structures of opportunity and constraint
come to bear on the educational chances of the poor to either expand or
constrain their likelihood of achieving competitive educational outcomes.
(OConnor, 2002).

Telling it Like it Is:

The Role of Race, Class & Culture in the Perpetuation of
Learning Disability as a Privileged Category for the White
Middle Class
Wanda J. Blanchett, Ph.D.
University of Missouri-Kansas City

Referring to the 1950s & 1960s

Christine Sleeter wrote a groundbreaking article

The category (of Learning Disability) emerged for a political purpose: to

differentiate and protect White middle class children who were failing in school
from lower class and minority children, during a time when schools were being
called upon to raise standards for economic and military purposes.
(Sleeter, 1987)

Following the creation of LD category, it quickly became a dumping ground for

children of color who did not qualify for mild mental retardation. Blanchett notes how
this has been a continuation of White privilege and of maintaining segregation after the
Brown decision.

African American students who were labeled MR or LD were more likely to be

separated from their peers.
Teachers give AA males the label of ED category while white males have
accommodation and modifications in general ed., the AA are educated in selfcontained classrooms.
White LD students look normal-like us. They get better services than AA
students. (when ED and MMR doesnt work, AA students said to be LD.)

For many poor people of color receiving a public education is their only HOPE
for their children.

Lack of societal ownership and responsibility is the newest form of racism and
discrimination.

no

Nontraditional
Viewpoint

I agree with Sleeter that developing and instituting a way to explain White
middle and upper class students failure during a period of increasingly higher
educational standards was a deliberate move to ensure and protect white middle
class intellectual supremacy.
(Blanchett, 2010)

References
*Oswald, Donald and Countinho, Martha. Why It Matters: What Is Disproportionate
Representation? CalStat Technical Assistance and Training. (2009) 1-2. Web. Nov. 2014.
*Countinho, Martha and Oswald, Donald. Disproportionate Representation of Culturally and
Linguistically Diverse Students in Special Education: Measuring the Problem. National
Center for Culturally Responsive Education Systems. (2006) Web. 1-10. Nov. 2014.
*OConnor, Carla and Fernandez, Sonia DeLuca. Race, Class, and Disproportionality:
Reevaluating the Relationship Between Poverty and Special Education Placement.
Educational Research, Vol.35, No. 6. pp. 6-11. (2009).Web. Nov. 2014
*Blanchett, Wanda J. Telling It Like It Is: The Role of Race, Class, & Culture in the
Perpetuation of Learning Disability as a Privileged Category for the White Middle Class.
Disability Studies Quarterly. (2010): 1-12. Nov 2014.
*Gibb, Ashley C. and Skiba, Russell. Using Data to Address Equity Issues in Special
Education. Center for Evaluation of Educational Policy, Indiana. Education Policy Brief, Vol.
6, No. 3 (winter 2008). pp. 4. Web. Nov. 2014