The Underrepresentation Of Minority Students In Talented Education

The special education programs in the United States have been designed to help children with special needs learn easier and fit in better with the education program. Unfortunately, many minority students get caught up in the mix and don’t get the proper attention they deserve. Furthermore, minority students are seriously over-represented in the educational programs. Many minority students are misdiagnosed and put into special education programs when in fact; they do not have a learning disability. This has become a growing problem in this country because it is seen as the easy way out. Schools all over the U.S. are doing this in order to not have to properly test and evaluate students for learning problems.

African American students account for the larger majority of minorities in public schools in the United States. Most areas in the northern part of the United states and coastal areas are ethnically diverse. However, down south this is not the case. Students of color will experience a harder time in the education system. African American students meet the obstacle of educators who will not want them to succeed based on a preconceived thought. In fact, Caucasian teachers make up for 85% of all

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

Middle school is a period of transition for adolescents. Students are no longer the children were once were in elementary school; they are beginning to mature into the adults they will need to become. Gifted learners at the middle-school level face the same developmental and tasks tasks and challenges that their peers do. Yet, gifted learners also possess traits that are different from their peers, which often make them misunderstood or ignored. The need for teachers to identify these students and differentiate instruction in a way that addresses the needs of the gifted students in the classroom is becoming more crucial than ever.

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.

In 1997, the United States Department of Education stated that disproportionate representation in special education is a problem, predominately affecting African American boys. The Individuals with Disabilities

(2013). Curriculum Issues. Gifted child Today. Retrieved from Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson), Ipswich, MA. Accessed July 29, 2015.

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).

You might think twice before sending a tennis coach to baseball’s spring training season; although there would be overlap in general kinesthetic and sports psychology knowledge, the nuances of the two sports are very different and require disparate sets of coaching skills. Just as a baseball team needs a coach who understands baseball, gifted students need guidance from well-trained, challenging teachers who understand their educational needs. Teacher training requirements for working with gifted students are determined at the state and local levels. Although gifted and talented students are in every school and classroom, few districts require that all classroom teachers receive training to address the educational needs of advanced learners.

According to the 2014 Public School Review Diversity Report, the state of Maryland is rated the third most diverse public school system in the nation, with 43% White students, 37% African American students, 11% Hispanic students, 6% Asian students, and 3% Unknown. With a significantly higher population of African American students compared to the state average, the Baltimore City School District is a far less diverse agency than the state school system as a whole. Collectively, the Baltimore City Public School District is comprised of 85% African American students, 8% White students, 5% Hispanic, 1% Asian/Pacific Islander, and less than 1% American Indian, Multiracial, Native Hawiian/other (Baltimore City Public Schools, 2013a). Considering

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

Under IDEA (2004), Disproportionality continues to exist in several categories listed, especially the categories of the Specific Learning Disability (SLD), Emotional Disturbance (ED), and Intellectual Disability (ID) ,(Gamm, 2007). Disproportionality is defined as the “overrepresentation” and “under-representation” of a particular population or demographic group in special or gifted education programs relative to the presence of this group in the overall student population (National Association for Bilingual Education, 2002). So many factors are responsible for this disproportionality, but the key factors, as apparent from researchers are; (1) gender difference, (2) overrepresentation of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse CLD population, (3) unsuccessful teaching approaches, (4) poor classroom management skills, and (5) assessment policies and practices.

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).

In an attempt to retain minorities in higher education, efforts of resolving this current issue have met many challenges that have caused decreases in the enrollment of predominantly white institutions. There have been a variety of studies conducted since 2000 to measure the value of higher education including minority attendance and performances. ((NCES,2016:APA,2012;Bischel,2012;; IGI,2017;Tinto2005,2006,2014,: Swail 1999,2008; Kamenetz,2016;USGA, N.D.; GAPS,2015). Most of these occurred in early 2000 with very little to nothing being done during meaningfully in the last decade. In the ACE study, New Jersey, and Arkansas, however, are examining the impact of minority higher education retention and it’s significant to our society and

The article that I read was titled: Assessment Practices and the Underrepresentation of Minority Students in Gifted and Talented Education. This article explained the possible reason for the reoccurring issue of the underrepresentation of minority students in the gifted programs. To explain this reoccurring issue, the article examined the different assessment tools such as rating scales, achievement and mental ability tests. In addition, a study was conducted to evaluate this issue. The article then shares the findings that underrepresentation is not an issue with assessments, but comes from the enduring achievement gap in education. Because of the study, the article shares a variety of ways that educators can use to assist in the identification