An Interview About Special Education

Have you ever thought about the relationship that special education and multicultural education has? How do teachers include culture in education? Is it by culturally relevant pedagogy? Special education students are put into classes for a specific reason. Most students are put into them for having difficulties learning or are in need of additional needs. Teachers who teach culturally relevant pedagogy should be able to use the student’s culture as a vehicle for learning. This type of teaching could also influence the students learning, as I will show you later in this essay.

If a student is both an English language learner and has a learning disability, their educational needs become inherently more complex. However, through research on the needs of English language learners with disabilities, on various case laws, and by participating in lectures on the topics of English language learners and students with learning disabilities, I have come to a clearer understanding of these unique needs as well as the processes necessary to identify, evaluate, and work with these students. Prior to the 1960s, both English language learners and students with disabilities were often segregated from their peers, given inadequate instruction, and inappropriately assessed (Ortiz, Woika, 2013). This began to change when, with the holding of Brown vs. board of Education (1954), a principle for equal educational opportunities for all students was brought to fruition (Yell, 1998). After this decision, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 prohibited the discrimination of people on the basis of race, color, or national origin in the operation of federally assisted programs. Further, to

Debates on the overrepresentation of minority students, particularly African- Americans and Hispanics are not new in special education and have characterized research in this field for over three decades. Regardless of time, legislative debate and a great amount of research theories, this problem remains. “In general, research has supported the public concern but the picture is unclear because studies have varied so much with

The problem of disproportionate numbers of minority students in special education can be attributed to a report by Lloyd Dunn in 1968 (as cited in Skiba et al., 2008) even though discrimination was evident long before that in America. The phenomenon of disproportionality as it relates to students from minority backgrounds being placed in special education refers to the percentage of students receiving services being a higher rate than is expected or that differs significantly from other races. Skiba et al. (2008) discuss the history of various aspects of the civil rights movement as they pertain to the issue of disproportionality of students from minority backgrounds in special education, the measurement tools used to determine the need for special education, the current status of disproportionality, and what factors have contributed to the discrepancies in numbers. Finally, recommendations are offered by the authors on how the existence of disproportionality of students from a minority background can be rectified.

The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) of 2004 has several different procedure and document that are to be followed when assessing individuals for a special education program. In Guiberson's (2009) research he suggests that some educators may be unprepared to work with diverse student populations. In a 200 participant survey of speech pathologist a study found that a third of the participants did not have sufficient training in multicultural issues (Guiberson, 2009). Studies have shown that students that learn in educational environment that reflect their cultural background tend to achieve more academically, which make multicultural instruction important in school with diverse populations (Ornstein & Levine, 2007). Guiberson's

Of all the males in state and federal prisons, 68% do not have a high school diploma (Amurao, 2013). A disproportionate number of Black male students that are enrolled in special education courses for countless reasons, however, most are for learning disabilities and behavioral issues. A study concluded in 1998 that the placement of African Americans in Special Education the schools enroll disproportionate numbers of Black males in special education. A study completed in 10 cities of disparities of White and African American males in special education and the racial composition of the teaching staff showed that there was a relationship between the number of Black male students that were placed in special education and the number of white teachers in the school system. The cities that were studied had the highest percentage of Caucasian teachers who had the highest percentage of Black students that were identified as special education (Walker,

Among the most longstanding and intransigent issues in the field, the disproportionate representation of minority students in special education programs has its roots in a long history of educational segregation and discrimination. Although national estimates of disproportionality have been consistent over time, state and local estimates may show varying patterns of disproportionality. A number of factors may contribute to disproportionality, including test bias, poverty, special education processes, inequity in general education, issues of behavior management, and cultural mismatch/cultural reproduction (Skiba, et al., 2008).

According to Kunjufu (2005) “could the reason for the high placement rate of African American males in special education be that African American male teachers count for only 1 percent of all teachers in public schools” (Introduction, para 4)? Kunjufu (2005) emphasized that “African American males make up only 8 percent of the public school student population but constitute almost 30 percent of the students placed in special education” (Introduction, para 7). Kunjufu (2005) added that “the field of special education was never designed to be a dumping ground for African American students, particularly males” (Introduction, para 9). The major reason for the disproportionate number of African American boys placed in special education is because of the public educational system not being culturally competent to meet the needs of this unique population (Kunjufu, 2005). There are other reasons for the disproportionate number of African American boys placed in special education programs, such as placement and testing procedures, parent and teaching training problems, economic factors, and the failure of schools to educate African American boys adequately (Herrera,

Over the course of this semester, I have had a valuable experience observing the children in the special services classroom at Coulter Grove Intermediate School in Maryville, Tennessee. During this observation, I did not only spend time observing the developmentally and physically disabled children that went to the school, but also their neurotypical peers that were put in the classroom as “peer buddies”. Peer buddies acted as friends to the disabled children in the classroom in order to expose the children to those with different abilities and challenges to them. The special services department covers the whole school, but I concentrated my attention on the children in the lower grades. These children were mainly white, but there was one young African-American girl. While the racial divide was uneven, the divide between the genders was around equal. Since the special services classrooms concentrated on children who needed more attention than children who were developing normally, there were more teachers than there is in a typical classroom. The number of teachers in the room varied throughout the day, but there were usually three or four in the classroom at any given time. I spent most of my time observing in the classroom, but also spent time in the cafeteria and playground, which opened me up to even more opportunities observing neurotypical children. In this final application paper, I will summarize my observations and analyze how exactly they match up to what we have

The purpose of the article’s introduction is to highlight the challenges that students from minority go through in special education schools. Linking his personal experiences as a former special educator, Connor strives to explore the intersection of learning disability, race, and class. The author collected data by conducting interviews with a participant researcher to get his side of the story. Connor planned to compare his LDs experiences with his own.

In the article The overrepresentation of African American students in special education, Fanion (2010) suggests some of Georgia’s public schools are struggling when it comes to the placement of minorities in special education (Fanion, 2010). Fanion (2010) suggests African American students still are placed in special education more than any other students in Georgia Public Schools. Georgia’s data shows African American students are more likely than any other minority group to be placed in special education and labeled with behavior and learning disabilities (Fanion, 2010).

One of the leading causes of disproportionate identification in special education is the school and teachers themselves. Minority students are more likely to attend urban, inner city schools where many of the teachers are not as experienced when dealing with racially and ethnically diverse classrooms (Donovan & Cross, 2002). Thus, these low-income schools are not going to offer advanced classes or top-notch special education

The special education program was introduced through the Individuals with Disabilities Information Act (IDEA) that allowed programs to help the mentally disabled. Disproportionate representation of student’s due to culturally different backgrounds of students in the special education program is on the rise, specifically people of color such as Hispanic and African American students. “Diversity is at the heart of inclusion” is what is strived for in the educational setting, yet isn’t always achieved. Disproportional representation of minorities in special education is increasing.

Students from one racial class are often discriminated in different fields of practice, especially in education. Notably, black students have been seen to suffer most based on the statistics from a survey such as that highlighted in Beratan (2008). The issue becomes critical when the group being discriminated has a special need, and the effect is that stigmatization occurs where the learners feel uncomfortable and end up not gaining from the education they are given. According to Hornby (2015), one of the key factors leading to the disproportional placement of black students in special education is the case of overrepresentation in gift and talent schools. This digest presents recommendations that can be used to eliminate disproportional placement and representation in special education.

Over the past twenty years, there has been a strong movement within schools around the United States to integrate students with disabilities in to general education classrooms. Schools have been making more efforts to increase educational opportunities for students with disabilities, and while there are many benefits to inclusion, there are also many challenges. Inclusion of special education students in a regular education classroom continues to be the center of debate amongst administrators and teachers. Everyone has their own ideas and attitudes towards inclusion, and research studies have revealed that there are many things that contribute to those positive or negative attitudes.