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Feb 20, 2024

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Bilingual Students and Their Relation to Special Education Position Paper: Bilingual Students and Their Relation to Special Education in NYC’s Public Schools Luis Tavarez Sped 3300K Dr. Yvel C. Crevecoeur The City College of New York 1
Bilingual Students and Their Relation to Special Education Abstract The debate surrounding bilingual education in the school system has been ongoing, with some arguing that it falls under special education, while others believe it does not since it’s not under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA), which ensures free, appropriate public education tailored to individual needs. Despite the potential benefits of bilingual education, many students are often classified as having a learning disability, despite their language proficiency being enriched and their ability to use diverse words. School professionals often evaluate these students, sometimes ignoring their language proficiency, leading to incorrect classifications. These students often get recommended for special education services that they do not need only because they get inaccurately assessed by school professionals who are not properly trained to conduct these assessments. To address this issue, school professionals in NYC’s public schools should receive in- depth training on student referrals and have an English-language acquisition expert present at IEP team meetings, as well as when doing students’ pre-referrals. Additionally, school professionals should take the evaluation process seriously, ensuring that English Language Learners (ELL) students are properly assessed before referring them for bilingual special education services. By doing so, they can better support and develop the language skills of these students, ultimately contributing to their academic success. 2
Bilingual Students and Their Relation to Special Education Bilingual Students and Their Relation to Special Education in NYC’s Public Schools Should students whose English is not their first language be considered students with special needs? This is a question that has been debated many times in the school system; if bilingual education falls into the special education field with some individuals being in favor since English Language Learners (ELL) students do require special accommodations to access the general education curriculum, just as students with specials needs do, while other individuals having a different opinion and believing that bilingual education and instructions fall into a completely different category than the ones already established by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act  (IDEIA) which is the legislation that ensures students with disabilities are being provided with a Free Appropriate Public Education tailored to their individual needs (IDEIA, 2004). Personally, I feel more inclined towards the belief that even though ELL students should be provided with certain accommodations to understand the lesson being presented to them, it would not be ethical to classify them as students with special needs for the sole reason of not being native English speakers. While working for the NYC Department of Education for many years, I have witnessed how many ELL students have been offered special services that were not needed only because teachers could not properly assess them based on their understanding of the English language. However, the only exception to this should be if there is a suspicion of a disability and students are recommended for an evaluation. If an evaluation is conducted by school professionals and it is determined that these ELL students need additional support, then an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) should be approved by the Special Education 3
Bilingual Students and Their Relation to Special Education Committee establishing other personalized accommodations for these students in addition to the ones being already provided for language (IEP, n.d.). History and Current Context of Bilingual Students and Their Relation to Special Education Several decades ago, people with disabilities did not receive the education they needed prior to laws being established that protected these individuals’ rights. In actuality, many people were confined in inadequate circumstances in state facilities for those with intellectual impairments or mental illnesses (U.S. Department of Education). At that time, offering a residence to individuals with disabilities was considered more vital than offering a proper education. In the well-known 1954 case of Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, a precedent was established that said it was unlawful to discriminate against any group of individuals, but unfortunately, students with disabilities were excluded from those groups as they were not considered as they belonged there. In addition, The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA), which was passed in the 1970s, marked a significant advancement in the education of individuals with disabilities. According to the statement, all kids with disabilities must receive "a free appropriate public education, regardless of the severity of the disability," under federal law. Before finally becoming what is currently known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990, this statute underwent several revisions and reauthorizations; for example, traumatic brain injuries and autism were added to the list of new conditions that fell under the law's purview when it was amended in 1990. IDEA also mandated that schools offered special education services to qualified children in accordance with their Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). 4
Bilingual Students and Their Relation to Special Education Furthermore, IDEA only recognizes 13 disabilities which are: autism, deaf-blindness, deafness, emotional disturbance, hearing impairment, intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, orthopedic impairment, other health impairment, specific learning disability, speech or language impairment, traumatic brain injury, and visual impairment   including blindness. According to IDEA, limited English proficient children would not be included among these groups as it would be considered overidentification under Special Education Laws ( IDEIA , 2004). Background Information on Bilingual Students and Their Relation to Special Education It is no secret that public schools in the United States of America are getting more diverse than ever with immigrants coming to this country looking for better opportunities while enriching our schools with their unique and picturesque culture. Even though these new English language learners have so much to offer to our school culture and community, sometimes they are deemed as lacking the knowledge needed to succeed academically and often get wrongly classified as having a learning disability, when in reality, most school professionals agree that bilingual students have an advantage over their monolingual counterparts because they can translanguage since their vocabulary becomes more enriched and they are capable of using more diverse words. These students are also able to use words in English as well as translated words from their native language proving that this ability is an advantage to them in school (Alvarado & Przymus, 2019). Also, as it was previously mentioned, IDEA considers it an inappropriate overidentification, or underidentification in some cases, to classify limited English-proficient children as disabled ( IDEIA , 2004). These students should be properly assessed, the same way as monolingual students, by well-trained individuals, using the most appropriate assessment instruments and in the language that students feel more comfortable with to obtain the most accurate and unbiased results (Pierangelo & Giuliani, 2023). 5
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