Over Representation of African Americans in Special Education

Running head: OVERREPRESENTAION OF BLACKS IN SPECIAL ED.

Matt Wainright

Troy State University

02/27/2009

Dr. Thompson

Introduction

The overidentification and overrepresentation of minority students in special educational classes has been a cause for concern (Bernahu, 2008). This literature review will discuss the prevalence of overidentification of African-American students in special education by presenting statistics and data showing that this race is overidentified and overrepresented as having intellectual, learning and behavioral disabilities. The review will also examine several theories on the probable causes of overidentification of African-American students. It will focus in particular on three studies: The Disproportionate Representation of African Americans in Special Education: Looking Behind the Curtain for Understanding and Solutions by James M. Patton, Self-Concept of African-American Students: An Operational Model for Special Education by Festus E. Obiakor and Disproportionate Representation of African Americans in Special Education: Acknowledging the role of White Privilege and Racism by Wanda J. Blanchett. The following research has shown that the problem is so complex as it involves a change in the educational system of the country, law enforcement on the part of the Government, a change in perspective of educators and knowledge providers, more awareness of parent's on the rights of their children to appropriate education all the way to racial and White supremacy issues. The review will conclude with the possible solutions to the overidentification as suggested by the aforementioned authors.

The Magnitude of the Problem The terms "overidentification" and "overrepresentation" will be used repeatedly in this study to refer to the tendency of educators to send African-American children to special education classes more than they do with white children. In the context of this study, overidentification will refer to the excessive identification of African-Americans as having learning, mental and behavioral disabilities. While overrepresentation happens when a specific group or demographic that has exceeded normal representation of any said group, and is therefore represented greater than it should be or is represented in excessive or disproportionately large numbers. Which brings us to the term "disproportionality" in the context of special education, which was defined by Blanchett (2006) as that which exists when students' representation in special education programs exceed their proportional enrollment in a school's general population. Various studies have found that compared to White students and other minority students, African-American students are most likely to be placed in special education (Dawson, 2008). Not only is there a racial discrimination against African-American students, but their number is disproportionately greater than any race of students being referred to special education (as cited in Terry, 2007). The overrepresentation of African-American students in special education programs has been recognized for years, ever since the 1960's, and yet there has been little action on this problem (Tidwell, 2001) which continued to persist until today (Patton, 1998). According to Patton (1998), in 1975, African-Americans constituted 38% of those classified as mentally disabled in the school population. Sixteen years later in 1991, they made up 35% of the special education population (as cited in Patton, 1998).In 1998, the number the U.S. Office of Education reported that 18% of the special education population was made up of African-Americans. Not only that, 24.6% of those categorized with serious emotional disturbance and 34.3% of those with mild retardation in students were represented by African-American students (Tidwell, 2001). According to Tidwell (2001), in the year 2001, the African American students represented 18.3% of special education students, as well as represented 26.4% of those with serious emotional disturbance and 34.3% of those characterized with mild retardation. And yet, these African Americans only represented 14.8% of the total student population (Tidwell, 2001). Simply put, African-American students are 2.41 times more likely to be identified as having mental retardation than their White classmates. African-American students are 1.13 times more likely to be identified has having a learning disability and 1. 68 times more likely to be identified as having an emotional/behavioral disorder (Klingner, et. Al., 2005).

Why Overidentification is a Problem The answer is simple. Most special education classes are held separately from regular classes. And with African-Americans overrepresenting the special education classes, the result is that these African-American students are segregated from the rest of the school population. According to studies, said special education classes have lower expectations from their students, resulting therefore in a less challenging curriculum. Therefore, those who come out of special education programs in general achieve less, and thus the said system disproportionately identifies the African-Americans as "losers" (Gartner and Lipsky, 1998), More specifically, as Chamberlain discussed, after completing their special education classes (if they do not drop out, that is) they are faced with unemployment and difficulty in obtaining higher education (as cited from Blanchett, 2006). Regardless of how modern or progressive we like to think our society today is, it will still be difficult for these students to find a job or a good college after having come from a special education background, because they are now labeled as being handicapped or mentally/learning/emotionally disabled.

Causes Behind the Overidentification of African American Students in Special Education: Theories

Self-Concept of African-American Students Festus E. Obiakor (1992) talks about the misuse and misrepresentation of the measurement of self-concept among African-American students. Self-concept was traditionally viewed as a highly integrated perception of the self. According to Obiakor (1992), it is assumed by most educators that African-Americans students have low self-concepts and inferior self-perceptions. Although many self-concept scales have produced reliable results, examples of which are the Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale and the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, they are too general and do not apply to African-American students. Obiakor recognizes the findings of many studies that self-concept and behavior are interdependent in such a way that having a positive self-concept results in a person's happiness. He posits however that the measures used to determine self-concept such cognitive skills, school grades, teacher's ratings, etc., are culturally biased and thus do not do justice to African-American students. He cites similar studies conducted wherein African-American children aged three to seven were made to choose between white and black dolls. According to the results of the aforementioned studies, the African-American children chose the white dolls to the black dolls. Therefore it was concluded that the African-American children have a negative perception of their own race, and that they have low self-expectations. Because special educators assume that African-Americans possess this negative self-concept, they end up sympathizing and worse, pitying the latter, instead of challenging and uplifting them. Because not much is expected of them, the students do not expect much of themselves and such self-pity results in a self-fulfilling prophecy of low-results and failure (Obiakor, 1992).

Persistent Patterns in Overrepresentation and Overidentification In his study, James M. Patton (1998) approached the problem of overidentification of African-American students in special education by examining the beliefs, assumptions, worldviews and cultural inclinations of those "writing the special education scripts" (Patton, 1998). Patton attributes the overrepresentation and overidentification of African-Americans in special education to first, the teacher's judgments in the referral process. And second, the inherent biases of the assessment process for the determination of disabilities. The combination of these two factors result in the misdiagnosis of African-American learners (Patton, 1998). In special education, the dominant mode of inquiry is objectivist or functionalist. Patton (1998) cites Foucault in defining the functionalist framework as one which sees the social reality in an objective, rational and orderly manner. When for example there is a deviation from this in an individual, there is automatically something wrong with him. Therefore, when a student fails in general education, or normal schooling as we know it, the student is seen as defective, needing a special system to fix them, which is the basis therefore of educators in special education in making their curriculum, learning materials, methods of teaching. According to Patton (1998), the functionalist framework or view fails in recognizing the socioeconomic and political nature of schooling. They do not realize that by segregating the wrongly diagnosed African-American students from the rest of the student population, they are maintaining a special education system unjust to African-Americans, placing them in a disvalued position. In his study, Patton (1998) specifically pinpoints the lack of African-Americans in the creation, manufacturing and production of the knowledge based used in special education or "knowledge producers" (Patton, 1998) as he calls them. Patton points out that since what the knowledge producers have a different perception of what is real, true or good (based on their culture and belief systems), they lack an insider insight into African-American behavior. With the narrow set of standards used to define what is "right", it is no wonder that African-American children are overly-identified as learning or behaviorally disabled.

The Role of White Privilege and Racism In her study, Wanda J. Blanchett (2006) goes as far as to say that the reason for the disproportion and overidentification of African-American students in special education is the existence of White privilege and racism in society. Blanchett (2006) defines "White privilege" as any phenomena that serve to privilege Whites, promoting White supremacy and oppressing people of color and in "racism" as forces (individual, structural, political, economic and social) that serve to discriminate against and disadvantage people of color on the basis on their race so that White dominance and power is maintained. According to Blanchett (2006) , the insufficient funding of African-American schools, the employment of culturally inappropriate curricula and the inadequate preparation of educators to effectively teach African-American students all cause the overidentification and disproportionality of African-American students in special education. According to Blanchett (2006), The National Research Council (2002) reported that improving the quality, through adequate funding, of schools predominantly attended by African-American students may lower their chances of being referred to special education in the future. Studies show that inadequate funding by the government of African-American schools is a reality. Example, in East St. Louis, where the children are all African-American, the state provides each child with free public education worth eight thousand dollars ($8,000) a year. In contrast to Lake Forrest in Chicago, which is a predominantly White suburb, where each child receives a free public education of eighteen-thousand ($18,000) a year . Blanchett (2006) explains that in the rare instances where the African-American and White schools receive the same amount of funding, other forms of inequity are apparent like the inadequacy of the preparation of teachers, facilities and rigorous curriculum. Blanchett emphasizes that these inequities are due to White Privilege and racism, even if the Whites do not recognize it as being so. Because, White Americans with children in higher-quality public schools feel entitled to the education they received and that their children are receiving, and for them it is just the way things are supposed to be. It is worrisome to note the following differences in terms of the quality of education, facilities and teachers between African-American dominated schools and those of White American dominated schools. As discussed by Blanchett (2006), schools with a disproportionate amount of African-American students without disabilities are taught by an uncertified or provisionally licensed teacher staff with a high turnover. The students here are not exposed to technology, foreign exchange programs and advanced classes and facilities. If ever they are, it is really limited. African-American students with disabilities (real or perceived) are excluded from general education programs and spend most of their school hours segregated from the class in order to attend special education classes, under similarly low quality conditions (Blanchett, 2006). Meanwhile, studies have shown that disproportionately White schools with students who are normal or without disabilities, are taught by teachers with masters or doctorate degrees and are exposed to a rigorous curriculum, foreign exchange programs, state-of-the-art facilities and the like. Disproportionately White students with learning disabilities are not pulled from their general education classes because their special education support is integrated in the context of their general curriculum.

Solutions to the Overidentification Problem
Recommendations for Educators and Educational Institutions To address the problem of educators who encourage a self-pitying self-concept on African-American students, an alternative perspective of self-concept must be taken. African-American students with special needs must be treated in such a way that these students are still challenged with their school work. According to Obiakor (1992), treating African-American students as helpless individuals is counterproductive to learning and to teaching as well. He further recommends that the instruments that measure self-concepts and their results must be interpreted according to the strengths and weaknesses within African-American students' self-concepts. To enhance African-American students' self-concepts Obiakor (1992) outlined the following strategies: (1) Avoiding negative student labels and categorizations; (2) Modifying external influences on self-concepts of students; (3) Being sensitive to students' needs without being over sympathetic, allowing students to be challenged with their school work; (4) Inspiring students to be goal-oriented in their decisions, thus gaining control of their lives; (5) Designing community programs and facilitating the involvement and incorporating the role of parents in their children's self-concept programs; (6)Emphasizing the accuracy of self-concept in identifying specific self-concept strengths and weaknesses of the students (7) Designing programs that will help students to understand who they are and appreciate and accept themselves for who they are; (8) Deemphasizing deficit assumptions; (9) Understanding and appreciating different cultures and relating this to self-concept cultural values; (10) Deemphasizing the idea that there is a positive correlation between self-concept and intelligence/academic performance. Patton (1998) recommends that educators be rigorous in the inquiry process of determining whether the child should be put under a special education program by employing sound methodologies that are guided by the cultural knowledge and experiences of African-Americans, as they are insiders to their culture. To do this, knowledge producers must provide for a system in special education that will allow for the input of African-American knowledge producers (Patton, 1998). Blanchett (2006) suggests that teachers must be adequately prepared not only to teach African-American special needs and normal children, but also be prepared to deconstruct their own White privilege and racism. According to Blanchet (2006), by deconstructing their own perceptions of "Whiteness" and "Blackness", the interactions between the teachers and their students will improve. Deconstruction will also decrease the likelihood that their racism will negatively influence their perspectives, particularly when making that crucial decision on whether or not to refer an African-American student to special education.

Recommendations for Government Institutions The federal government has the responsibility as well as the authority to address issues of overidentification and disproportion as provided for under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 , Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights act of 1964. According to Gartner & Lipsky (1998) to ensure the proper implementation of these laws, the Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Special Education Programs need to require data that gives an accurate picture of student placement. This can be done by requiring the education departments from each state to submit data on the disability categories that exist in their state in relation to the size of each school district. The need for this data and the identification of the local school districts by race and the percentage of students classified as disabled is essential to addressing this problem, thus rigorous enforcement by the government agencies must be effected. Moreover, strict compliance by all states with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which provides for the free appropriate public education for all children, must be ensured.

Recommendations for Parents According to Tidwell (2001) parents must not leave school placement in the hands of the state, the teachers and school psychologists. Parents by federal law are guaranteed free appropriate public education for their children through the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). If there is an increase of awareness in parents on their rights and responsibilities under the IDEA law, the state and schools will be forced to comply with their obligations in providing the adequate and appropriate services for their children. Therefore, parents must be aggressive and active in researching and updating themselves on their legal rights and responsibilities. Every state has a special education law, which parents must be familiar with. Tidwell (2001) says that the legal process must be used by parents to obtain the appropriate services and support for their child. Parents must also be vigilant in finding out the results of their children's evaluations and the accuracy of these results. More than anything, parents must also be assiduous in finding out if the special needs system of their child's school uses the correct methodologies and materials.

Conclusion

As seen from the review of related literature, the problem with overidentification of African American students in special education programs stems from the issues, biases, and the lack of knowledge and skills of non-African Americans. The failure of educators to understand the culture and behavior of African-American students lead to the wrong conclusion that something was wrong with the latter that had to be corrected with special education. As seen from the various studies discussed above, the segregation of African-American students from regular or general education classes not only have injurious effects on the students' self-concepts and success, but do not in any way solve the "disability" that special education was supposed to remedy. The challenge we now face, as many of the authors have said above, is to change our mindset in thinking that there is something inherently wrong with African-American students that makes them predisposed to learning, intellectual or emotional disabilities. We must deconstruct our biases against African-Americans if we want to move forward and avoid hanging on to the clutches of America's dark history when African-Americans were treated and actually made slaves of the Whites. African-American educators must step forward and advocate this cause as they, more than anyone, understand their culture, behaviors and patterns. The government must not only come up with laws regarding the appropriate education for all children, but must actually work to implement them. Education is the foundation of a society. If we start off on the wrong foot here, its future effects will be harder to correct and remedy. Parents must increase their awareness with education laws, be attentive to their children's educational needs and work hand in hand with the teachers to ensure that their children are receiving the education that they, by law, are entitled to by right. For the overidentification of African-Americans, an issue that has existed for too long, to finally disappear, all these changes must be effected concurrently, as they are all intertwined.

References
Berhanu, G. (2008). Ethnic minority pupils in Swedish schools: some trends in over- representation of minority pupils in special educational programmes. International Journal of Special Education, vol. 23, no. 3; 2.

Blanchett, W. J. (2006). Disproportionate representation of African American students in special education: acknowledging the role of White privilege in racism. Educational Researcher, vol. 35, no. 6, 24-28.

Dawson, R. A. (2008). Practices for preventing disproportionate representation of African American children in special education: A study of successful California public school pre-referral teams. (Ph.D. dissertation, Fielding Graduate University, 2008). Retrieved February 14, 2009, from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database. (Publication No. AAT 3303417).

Gartner, A. and Lipsky, D.K. (1998). Over-representation of Black students in special education: problem or symptom? Poverty & Race. vol. 7, no. 5, p. 3.

Obiakor, F. (1992) Self-concept of African-American Students: An operational model for special education. Exceptional Children, vol. 59, no. 2, 160-168.

Overidentification. (n.d.). In Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary online. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from http://www.dictionary.reference.com

Patton, J. M. (1998). The disproportionate representation of African Americans in special education: Looking behind the curtain for understanding and solutions. Journal of Special Education, vol. 32, 25–31.
Terry, L. M. (2007). Keeping Black boys out of special education. The Journal of Negro Education, vol. 76, no. 4, 625-628.

Tidwell, N. (2001). Guard against the mislabeling of children. New Journal & Guide, p.2.

Tidwell, N. (2001) Continued mislabeling of African-American corner-children requires parental attention. New York Amsterdam News, vol. 92, no. 35, 18-22.

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