Demographic Characteristics Paper

Gifted education is very stressful for students in middle school, but if you start in elementary school with a gifted program it could be less stressful on your child. Gifted programs are good programs but there are things that could make your child feel pressured and they may want to leave the program. To get into the programs depending on the district you are in there could be discrimination to be accepted or recommended to test for it. This discrimination could be based on race, income, gender, or ethnicity, if you’re in a school district that lets you apply without being recommended then you won’t have to worry about this. Studies show that in Broward County they started with teachers recommended students and then changed their system to where any students could apply to the gifted programs and there was a major increase in low income, latino, and black students that were accepted.

The data provided shows that an overrepresentation of minority students exists in special education. One of the main reasons for this overrepresentation has to do with the variation of studies on this topic. Differences have been noted in

The setting is Washington Elementary School in West Orange, NJ. The grade I picked is first grade. The age group in the class is between the ages of five and seven. The subjects they learn are math, language arts, social studies, and writing. But they focus more on reading and math throughout the day. There are 8 girls and 8 boys in the classroom which makes 16 students in total. The class is divided into three racial and ethnic groups which are Latino or Hispanic, African Americans, and Asian American. There are about 1 Asian American, 6 Latino or Hispanic, and 9 African Americans.

Over the past 30 years, the U.S. public school system has faced a significant issue of disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education programs. According to Salend (2002), disproportionate representation is defined as the presence of students from a specific group (e.g., race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, language background, gender, etc.) is higher or lower than one would expect based on their representation in the general population of students. Although there have been many efforts to reduce the disproportion in special education, the trend of minority overrepresentation is ongoing. The federal government tried to rectify it with provisions made in the 1997 reauthorization of

Every program is different in their approach to meeting the needs of the individuals that

As an educator teaching in the general education setting, I selected this topic because I have always wonder about the factors that led to how many minority students are placed in special education. Current statistics show black males are more likely to be placed in special education than white males. I am currently following the Allston versus Lower Merion School District court case. In the case of Allston versus Lower Merion School District, the parents are suing the school district because they feel their children were wrongly labeled with learning disabilities and kept in special education without re-evaluations being conducted. With the protection of the federal

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.

Because of school-wide issue such as, funding, space, and staff availability, this may be the maximum amount of time that they can physically provide for pullout enrichment for gifted students. This is common, and in these cases, it is important to “ensure that the curricular and instructional experiences within the general education classroom are appropriate for the advanced needs of gifted students” (Brighton and Wiley, 2013, p.192). We know from the Lackland description, that their students are not receiving these educational opportunities in their general education classrooms because many of the students are displaying a lack of

The evaluation of a program can be simple and informal or complex and very formal or a combination of the two. For every program designer or manager there are benefits to program evaluation and a necessity to evaluate the program. Program evaluation tells you whether the time and effort spent in and on the program is worth it ("Why Program Evaluation is Important | National Center for Women & Information Technology," n.d.). This is a look into what program evaluation is, why a program should be evaluated, the different models of evaluation, and an in-depth look at one specific model – The Goal Free Model.

The total enrollment is six hundred twenty-four students (624), the racial demographics of the school is African American or Black is twenty-three percent (23%) or one hundred forty-six (146) students, Hispanic or Latino is sixty-one percent (61%) or three hundred eighty-three (383) students and Caucasian is fifteen percent (15%) or ninety-five (95) students. The subgroups such as students with disabilities comprised twenty percent (20%) or one hundred twenty-four (124) students, English learners are fifty percent (50%) or three hundred thirteen (313) students, Limited English speaking learners are thirty-seven percent (37%) or one hundred fifteen (115) students, the economically disadvantage students are seventy-three percent (73%) or four hundred fifty-eight (458) students, K-8 average daily attendance rate is ninety-five percent (95%), Hispanic/Latino students attendance rate is eighty-nine percent (89%), Caucasian students attendance rate is ninety-four percent (94%), the African American or Black students attendance rate is ninety-two (93%), K-8 promotion rate is ninety-four percent (94%), total student suspension rate is two in half percent (2.5%) and male suspension rate is three and half percent (3.5%). Also, the

When special education programs encompass students at a much higher rate than the schools’ general population, disproportionality has occurred. If the disability proportion of a minority group is considerably different from the proportion for the rest of the population, then an evident issue exists in the process of identifying students with disabilities across cultural groups (Simmons et al. 266). The current education system identifies African American students as intellectually disabled three times more often and as emotionally disturbed two times more often than their Caucasian peers (Friend 74). In contrast, professionals fail to identify Asian and Hispanic students as autistic, leading to their underrepresentation, while they do identify Caucasian students as gifted or talented three to four times more often than the rest of

Each program that is trying to be implemented should consist of the following: The programs must consist of two enrollment processes, which are annual and bi-annual. The programs must have a committee that will review the applications of the future clients. The governing body of the program must have a

Based from the information provided by VanTassel-Baska, et. Al. (2009), gifted and talented students face the same issues as their regular peers but they have different way of viewing these issues and it affects them differently as well. The book discussed different issues that gifted learners face and recommendations on how to address these issues were also available for teachers, administrators and other school personnel. Also, Carol Strip Whitney (2011) in her book entitle Helping Gifted Learners Soar discussed stress as a factor that can distract

I believe there are several reasons why twice exceptional students fail to be identified and served. The first reason is because teachers are undertrained and do not know how to identify. Another reason is that some talents are only seen at home or in non-academic settings. The third reason is many students with a learning disability (identified or not) often get missed because the LD over shadows the talents or the talents compensate for the LD and both go unidentified. The main reason I think special education and gifted education are mutually exclusive in many school is because many people hold the belief that the two are serving different types of learners with different types of needs. However, they actually share students.

A total of 352 kindergarten through fifth graders participated on the student survey which is around 44.2% of the entire school building. Students answered 5,079 questions out of a possible 5,210 questions which results in a 97.5% of questions answered. Using class rosters and permission letter comparisons, the demographic of survey participants was as follows: 65% White, 11% Hispanic, 15% Black, and 9% other. This is a close reflection of the building demographics with a slight