June, 2002

Racial Inequity in Special Education
Executive Summary for Federal Policy Makers

Since its passage in 1975, the IDEA has brought tremendous benefits: today, approximately six million children with disabilities enjoy their right to a free appropriate public education. The benefits of special education, however, have not been equitably distributed. Minority children with disabilities all too often experience inadequate services, low-quality curriculum and instruction, and unnecessary isolation from their nondisabled peers. Moreover, inappropriate practices in both general and special education classrooms have resulted in overrepresentation, misclassification, and hardship for minority students, particularly black children.

In 1998, approximately 1.5 million minority children were identified as having mental retardation, emotional disturbance, or a specific learning disability. More than 876,000 of these were black or Native American. Minority students, specifically black and Native American students, are significantly more likely than white students to be identified as having a disability. For example, in most states, African American children are identified at one and a half to four times the rate of white children in the disability categories of mental retardation and emotional disturbance. In the national data, Latino and Asian American children are under identified in cognitive disability categories compared to whites, raising questions about whether the special education needs of these children are being met. However, school and district data showing instances of Latino overrepresentation suggest that there are both over and under representation concerns for these minority groups.

Once identified, most minority students are significantly more likely to be removed from the general education program and be educated in a more restrictive environment. For instance, African American and Latino students are about twice as likely as white students to be educated in a restrictive, substantially separate educational setting. Given that students with special needs benefit most when they are educated in the least restrictive environment to the maximum extent appropriate, the data on educational settings raise serious questions about the quality of special education provided to Latino, black, and other minority students compared to whites.

The concern about racial inequity in special education is really part of a much larger concern about inequity in education generally. We know that most children are deemed eligible for special education only after their general education teachers refer them for evaluation. Because general and special education are linked, our research and recommendations address special education as it is encompassed by the larger general education system.

Additional Findings

• In wealthier districts, contrary to researcher's expectations, black children, especially males, were more likely to be labeled mentally retarded. Native American children also showed this unexpected trend, but to a lesser degree than black children. Usually, poverty correlates with poor prenatal care, low birth rates and other factors and therefore an increased risk for disabilities, while wealth usually correlates with a decreased risk.
• Minority children with disabilities are underserved: Black children with emotional disturbance often do not receive high quality early intervention and received far fewer hours of counseling and related services than white students with emotional disturbance. The lack of early intervention for minority children may exacerbate their learning and behavior problems and contribute to racial disproportionality in our juvenile justice system.
• Disturbing racial disparities are found in outcomes and in rates of discipline: Among high school youth with disabilities, about 75 percent of African American students, as compared to 47 percent of white students, are not employed two years out of school. Three to five years out of school the arrest rate for African Americans with disabilities is 40 percent, as compared to 27 percent for Whites. New data also depicts substantially higher rates of school disciplinary action and placement in correctional facilities for minority students with disabilities.
• The process of identification and placement is rife with subjectivity: Qualitative research indicates that subjective decisions creep into all elements of the evaluation process, including whom to test, what test to use, when to use alternative tests, and how to interpret the results.
• Black identification for mental retardation is pronounced in the South: Southern states constituted nearly three quarters of the states with unusually high incidence levels; where between 2.75 and 5.41 percent of the blacks enrolled were labeled as mentally retarded. The prevalence of mental retardation for whites nationally was approximately 0.75 percent in 2001, and in no state did the incidence of mental retardation among Whites rise above 2.32 percent.
• The theory that poverty can explain overrepresentation in mental retardation or emotional disturbance is contradicted by national trends revealed by the data: For example, poverty theory fails to explain: (a) why gross racial disparities are only found in mental retardation (MR) and emotional disturbance (ED), and not in the category of specific learning disability or any medically diagnosed disabilities; or (b) why Latinos have a far lower identification rate for MR and ED than both blacks and Whites, despite the fact that blacks and Latinos share a far greater risk than whites for poverty, exposure to environmental toxins, and low academic achievement.
• The research suggests that the observed racial, ethnic, and gender disparities are the result of many complex and interacting factors including: unconscious racial bias on the part of school authorities; large resource inequalities (such as the lack of high quality teachers) that run along lines of race and class; unjustifiable reliance on IQ and other evaluation tools; educators' inappropriate responses to the pressures of high-stakes testing; and power differentials between minority parents and school officials.

Recommendations

Following the example of federal education reforms that focus on reducing racial disparities in achievement the IDEA policy debate on racial disparities in special education should focus on ways to reduce these inequities and not on whether discrimination is the primary cause. Moreover, the federal education reform concepts, that racially disparate outcomes can be remedied through public reporting of disaggregated data, school district accountability, and required assistance and interventions, should likewise be applied to remedying the gross racial disparities in special education identification and placement.

• Require data collection and public reporting from every school and district: The law should require every state and school district to collect and publicly report disaggregated data by race, gender, and English language learner status with disability category and educational setting. With such data readily available our understanding of these issues and where help is most needed would be improved many times over.
• Remedy the inequity in access to high quality teachers: The federal government should insist that states receiving Title I and IDEA grants make substantial progress toward ensuring minority students in both general and special education have equitable access to high quality teachers.
• Improve early intervention: Investments in high-quality special education and early intervention are sorely needed and could reduce the likelihood that minority students with disabilities will develop serious discipline problems or eventually wind up in correctional facilities.
• Ensure accountability where disparities are significant: States and districts should be held accountable where unjustifiable disproportionality persists. They should be required to provide technical assistance and other interventions to effect reforms. An accountability system should be triggered by "significant" racial disproportionality and require closer examination of the district in question, with rewards, incentives and continued supports to foster successful efforts.
• Ratchet-up federal oversight and enforcement: There is a great need for stepped-up enforcement and oversight by both federal and state agencies geared toward encouraging the active participation of educators at all levels and evaluated in terms of the outcomes for minority children. More frequent exercise of partial withholding by OSEP enforcement agents to leverage compliance in specific areas would allow OSEP to ratchet up its enforcement efforts without resorting to the wholesale withdrawal of federal funds from a State or district.
• Boost the power of parents to seek remedies: Federal legislation should include a private right of action and an opportunity for judicial review for individuals and classes of complainants specific to racial disproportionality, but structured so that these rights and remedies would not detract from or delay the exercise of rights or opportunities for private action that exist under current state or federal law.
• Guarantee that states receive adequate funding: Federal policymakers should improve IDEA implementation and civil rights enforcement without imposing blanket limitations on federal special education funding, which would have a negative impact on children with disabilities nationwide. To implement many of our recommendations would require a large infusion of resources, including funds for the training of general and special education teachers and administrators so that schools can provide more effective instruction in the least restrictive, most inclusive environment appropriate.

Conclusion

There are no quick fixes. The problems explored here have many roots, and creating better outcomes requires difficult changes at many levels. More research is needed on the practices that produce inequality and the reforms that can successfully correct them. We need to reach the point at which every child is treated as if he or she were our own child, with the same tirelessly defended life possibilities. In schools where we can predict the racial makeup of a special education class before we open the door, we must have leadership, if possible, and enforcement, if necessary, to ensure that each child receives the quality academic support and special services he or she truly needs without diminishing any of the opportunities that are any child's right in American society. We hope our book and continued efforts to inform the federal debate will contribute to that dream.