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The paradoxes of overrepresentation of African Americans in special education: a critical race theory approach

In 2009, I moved from Chicago to Urbana, Illinois. After living in the city, working parttime at on-again, off-again temp jobs and internships, I was pleasantly surprised to get a job in the neighboring town of Champaign almost immediately. The job was as a teachers assistant, also known as an aide or a paraprofessional, in a self-contained classroom for middle school students with mild cognitive disabilities. I had spent a little bit of time before moving to Illinois working in education, as a writing tutor in a state prison in New York, and running an afterschool creative writing workshop in the town of Hudson, NY, so I knew a little bit about how minorities in particular African Americans have encountered difficulties in educational settings. Even still, though, I was surprised to find that, in a town that is only about 15% African American, about 60% of my students were Black. And as I worked and got to know my students, I began to realize that, even though they had all been labeled as having a cognitive disability, they all had a very diverse set of strengths and needs. This made me begin to question why they were all in the same classroom, the special classroom, doing the same things, while all of the other students at the school were someplace else, doing something different. After working at the middle school for two years, I left my job to return to graduate school and pursue my education degree, to become a special education teacher. Part of my program at the University of Illinois requires me to serve a teaching practicum in different special education classrooms in the community. In every single one of these classes that I have been in so far, the majority or the entirety of my student body have been Black.

By definition, students with cognitive disabilities have significantly sub-average intellectual functioning that adversely affects their educational performance. (Friend, 2011) An effective special education program ought to alleviate the effects of this disability, allowing the students to function at a level closer to their typically developing peers. Of course, in the population that I served was within itself incredibly diverse. Some of the students, both Black and White, were far below their peers in the academic areas of reading, writing, and math, some of whom were reading at a 1st grade level at the age of fourteen. Other students in the same class, on the other hand, could and would perform at or near grade level in multiple academic areas. And yet, usually, all of these students were being treated the same by the environment in which they were in. One thing that I have learned through my work and school experience has been that every student is unique and, in order to be an effective teacher, you need to be able respect that students abilities and find a way to play to his or her strengths. But one thing that has bothered me for the past three years has been this daily reminder that, on some level, students especially students with disabilities are not treated uniquely, and, therefore, not justly. On some level, consciously or unconsciously, they are treated as a homogeneous group, and this means that they are not receiving the best possible education. For two generations now, the overrepresentation of minorities in special education in the United States has been a major topic of concern for educators, policy-makers, and theorists. As of 2004, African American students were 1.65 times more likely to be labeled as having a disability than their White peers. (Friend, 2011) This disproportionality is greater within certain specific disability categories, such as intellectual disabilities and emotional disturbances. African Americans with disabilities are more likely than their White peers to have their access to

general education classrooms and curriculum restricted. And, despite years of efforts to ameliorate it, the overrepresentation of minorities in special education persists, along with the stigma that it carries. Today, Im going to try to consider how the special education system manifests systemic racism by unjustly distributing the services that it provides to students, almost exclusively to the detriment of African Americans. However, this is not the only function that the system performs. In many cases, special education can also serve to increase minorities access to necessary educational and public services. Yet the ways in which it works to prevent African Americans from fully participating in their education and, therefore, society, needs to be described and confronted. Another theme that I will discuss is the ways in which much of the academic literature within the field of special education addresses the issues of minority overrepresentation without encountering it on a systemic level. The majority of the articles written within the field confront the issues of overrepresentation by proposing new teaching techniques or by improving current policies that are already in place. These authors do not consider the overrepresentation of African Americans through the lens of critical race theory, of social justice, or of systemic racism. One of the happy exceptions to this is Theorizing social inequity in special education, by A.L. Sullivan and A.J. Artiles. Sullivan and Artiles suggest that most studies explanations of this phenomenon try to make sense of the data without locating it within a theoretical framework. This is a notion with which I whole-heartedly agree. Sullivan and Artiles go on to suggest that the appropriate theoretical framework through which one should view the issue of overrepresentation is social justice. They define social justice as the patterns and distribution of resources, life chances, costs, and benefits among

groups of a population. (Sullivan and Artiles, 2011) I believe that this is a key concept. When considering the labeling of any student in special education, teachers should consider what resources, life choices, and benefits are being made available to them, and which are ones are being taken away. Sadly, when looking at the placement of African Americans with disabilities, we too often see more of these resources being stripped from them, and too few being endowed. The status of special education students in America is determined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, or IDEA. Originally signed into law in 1975, and last renewed in 2004, IDEA was intended to ensure that all states provide education to all students with disabilities. IDEA contains within itself six core principles, two of which I am concerned with. These are the right to a free and appropriate education, and the right to the least restrictive learning environment possible. These two principles are important for this discussion because they are federally mandated protections that are only given to students with disabilities. Only students with disabilities have a federal right to a guaranteed free and appropriate education, and only students with disabilities have a right to receive an education in the least restrictive environment appropriate. These are a few of the tangible benefits that special education students receive, and there are several mechanisms by which these rights are protected. If a student is determined to qualify for special education, he or she has an Individualized Education Program (IEP) written for them. Theoretically, therefore, a student with an IEP has more protection from receiving a substandard education then his or her typically developing peers; the act of referring him or her for special education services by definition grants him or her access to resources that most students do not have, such as social work, psychology, speech and language therapy, and

occupational and physical therapy, as well as a curriculum specifically designed to meet his or her unique needs and deficits. However, as there are safeguards within the special education system to protect students with disabilities, there are other mechanisms by which they are disadvantaged. These include being placed in restrictive and segregated environments, being denied access to the same curriculum as their general education peers, being excluded from social activities, and carrying with them the additional stigma of being a special education kid. When we investigate these detriments of the special education system, it will be fruitful to keep in mind our concept of social justice and what that entails. In other words, how is the distribution of resources, life chances, and benefits, being unfairly skewed against students with disabilities and especially against African Americans with disabilities? Before continuing, it is important to note that the greatest levels of overrepresentation in special education are in the high incidence areas, which includes emotional disabilities, learning disabilities, and cognitive disabilities. (Sullivan and Artiles, 2011). These three labels combine to entail approximately 59% of all students with disabilities. It is also of interest to note that these tend to be the least visible of disabilities; compare them with so-called low incidence disabilities such as Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, and vision impairment. It has long been acknowledged that the high incidence disability labels are those that are the most subjectively determined due to their lack of either physical markers or medical diagnoses. (Donovan and Cross, 2002, Sullivan and Artiles, 2011) [7:28] In Illinois in the 2010-2011 school year, there were 266,342 students with disabilities receiving special education services, and of these, 59,463 were Black or African American, making up 22.3% of the total, compared to being an estimated 18.9% of the state population.

(Nation wide, African Americans make up 19.1% of students with disabilities, compared to being 12.6% of the total population.) (Illinois State Board of Education, 2012) Within this statistic, one can find several other trends. For example, African Americans make up 17.9% of students with disabilities who are in a general education classroom with their peers for at least 80% of the school day. Of the students with disabilities who receive educational services in a separate school, 30.8% of them are Black. Of students who receive services in a residential facility, 27.8% are Black, and although the state of Illinois has not presented this data, nationwide, of students who receive special education services in a correctional facility, 52.2% are Black. (U.S. Department of Education, 2010) As the setting in which students with disabilities taught becomes more restrictive and segregated, the percentage of those students who are Black rises. (Fierros and Conroy, 2002) Furthermore, there is high correlation between the degree of restriction of the environment in which a student learns and the measurable quality of the education that student receives. In 2008, 37% of students with disabilities in Illinois met or exceeded state standards in reading, compared to 77.8% of their typically developing peers. Interestingly enough, this performance gap is considerably less in mathematics, where, in 2008, 48.5% of students with disabilities met or exceeded state standards, compared to 82.6% of students without disabilities. And yet students who spend at least 80% of their day in inclusive educational settings perform better across the academic spectrum than their excluded peers. (Oswald et al, 2002) [8:56] We should also consider how each disability category is broken down according to race. According to the U.S. Department of Education, as of 2004, an African American student was 1.7 times more likely than his or her White peer to be identified as having a learning disability, 2.6 times more likely to have an emotional or behavioral disturbance, and 4.4 times more likely

to have an intellectual or cognitive disability, also known as mental retardation, like in the class where I worked as a paraprofessional. (U.S. Department of Education, 2009, Gravois and Rosenfield, 2006) In the area of mental retardation, African Americans make up more than 35% of the total student population, more than twice their percentage of the national student body. (Gravois and Rosenfield, 2006). Interestingly enough, students with mental retardation spend a greater portion of their school day outside of the general education classroom than any other disability group. (Fierros and Conroy, 2002) Another area in which minority students with disabilities and, in particular, African Americans, are handicapped through special education is through higher rates and more severe instances of discipline and punishment. African Americans with disabilities are 2.39 times more likely than their white peers to be placed in disciplinary alternative education programs. (Booker and Mitchell, 2011) They are 1.56 times more likely to be suspended than their White peers. (Krezmien et al. 2006) In addition, they are far more likely than their White peers to be placed in restrictive environments for subjective reasons, such as disobedience, disruptive behavior, and inappropriate behavior, whereas White students are more likely to be cited for observable and quantifiable reasons, such as possession of narcotics, alcohol, or firearms. (Booker and Mitchell, 2011) [10:24] In these main areas of special education: identification, placement, and punishment, African Americans are more severely dealt with than their peers. It is a reasonable interpretation of this data to conclude that labeling a student, in particular an African American, as having a disability and being in need of special education services can act as a way to prevent him or her from the same resources, life chances, and benefits that their regular education peers receive. This overrepresentation affects the performance of African American students in special

education on measurable criteria in school, and suggests that special education is hindering, not helping, African Americans in public education. [11:03] In what ways does the placement of special education students bar them from accessing the same curriculum as their non-disabled peers? Lets return for a while to my job as a seventh grade aide in Champaign. The class in which I worked and spent the majority of my day was a self-contained English/Language Arts class, where students generally received intensive instruction on areas where they have a particular deficiency, such as reading comprehension or phonetic decoding. Many of these same students received similar instruction in math, although they were included with their general education peers or pushed in in science, social studies, and elective classes. Because of this, our students were often excluded from the daily goings-on at the school. They were regularly excluded from field trips, movie days, and guest presentations to the school. One day, we had to quickly change our lesson plans because it was field day, and none of our students (nor, sadly, the teachers) had been informed. On a regular basis, our special ed class was being excluded from school-wide activities that benefited all the other students. [11:40] What we see here, from the perspective of social justice established through Sullivan and Artiles, is a mechanism by which students are denied access to the same quality of education that is provided for their peers. The hidden curriculum is every bit as important to a students education as what is being taught in the classroom; this is what is learned on the playground, the gym floor, in the cafeteria, the bathrooms, and in the hallways when the students think that there isnt a teacher nearby. When educators opt to remove a student from this environment, they are depriving him or her of a vital and necessary part of learning.

Take, for another example, a 7th grade student with whom I worked, Anita. Anita struggled with reading. As a 7th grader, she was reading at a 3rd or 4th grade level. However, she was at grade level in math, and was very good at problem solving and critical thinking. However, because, at some point in her life, she had been labeled as having a cognitive disability, she spent most of her time in a self-contained classroom, away from her friends and peers. She would constantly ask me what she could do to get out of this classroom, she would demand to have the door shut whenever we were working in the room. For Anita, every day brought some new form of humiliation, as she had to be confronted by her friends about what life was like in the stupid class. And, socially, for a smart, 13-year old African American girl who happens not to be able to read very well, this is devastating. These are the sort of factors that more teachers ought to consider before recommending a student for special education. [13:10] On the other hand, by not providing a student with special education, a teacher may be restricting access for a student from certain necessary services, meaning not just academic support, but also potentially social work, psychology, speech and language therapy, and medical services. Here is one example, from my own experiences. A 5th grade African American female student, Danica, was enrolled in a general education classroom, where she was behind by about one grade level in reading and in math. Danica was frequently cited for being disruptive, and with arguing with her teacher. She spent a lot of her time in school being disciplined; sometimes entire school days were lost between standing in the hallway and sitting in the principals office. At the recommendation of her 5th grade teacher, this student was screened to see if she qualified for special education. At first, Danicas mother wanted to deny special education services. But after the administrator informed her of the services that she had a right to, the mother changed her mind. Even though, during testing, the special education

teacher didnt find any evidence of any kind of learning disability, Danicas IEP team still recommended her for special education, and she would soon be placed in the special education room. [14:16] I highlight this anecdote because it sheds a little light on how systemic racism works within the school system: Maybe we could criticize some of the players in this scene. But I think it would be hard to say that any of them acted aberrantly. The general education teacher saw how the student was not merely misbehaving but also failing in her classroom; the mother, once she became aware of them, wanted her daughter to have access to all of the supports and services that she had a right to; and the special education teacher did not want to deny the student these rights based on the results of a test score. What we see instead is what Gerardo Lopez describes in The Racially Neutral Politics of Education as the normalization of racism in society, a kind of systemic racial discrimination that renders individual intent irrelevant. (Lopez, 2003) I dont know what Danica is doing now, as she prepares for middle school, but I wonder if she will face the same challenges as Anita has as a result of being barred from some of the hidden benefits of the general education curriculum. [15:19] What I have tried to explain is some ways in which special education commits injustices against African Americans through systemically excluding them from the same resources that are afforded to other students without disabilities. I now want to turn towards some issues with how these problems are being addressed and how they can be more effectively addressed through a critical race theory approach. Most of the literature in the field approaches the problems of racism in special education as a kind of deviant behavior that needs to be corrected or rectified. It is viewed by the majority of the literature as an individual construct, not as a systemic one. Because of this

perspective, authors, in their attempts to correct this deviancy, propose minute changes that ultimately fail in addressing the actual racism within special education. Examples include providing instructional consultation teams for teachers who struggle with diverse learning groups, and implementing culturally responsive response teams to prevent teacher bias from deciding educational placement. I do not wish or intend to denigrate the quality research and writing in the field, and I can see how these programs could be valuable. But the fact is that today, 37 years after the initial passing of IDEA into law, minority overrepresentation and the pernicious effects of it are as consequential as they ever were. Lopez sees these shortcomings from his perspective within educational leadership and administration; it would also be beneficial to apply them to the world of special education. To paraphrase him, racism can no longer be treated as a theoretical footnote within the larger discourse of special education. Instead, we must see how issues of race and of systemic racism intersect and permeate the entire educational landscape. [17:01] As teachers, we are obligated to provide the best possible educational outcomes for our students. As special education teachers, we are legally bound to advocate on behalf of our students with disabilities and to secure for them an appropriate education. (Turnbull and Turnbull, 2011) The question that we educators must constantly be asking ourselves is: Who benefits from the decisions that we make? If I make a decision to place one of my African American students in special education, will he be the ultimate benefactor of that decision? Or will I be placing him on the first step towards exclusion, segregation, and unjust punishment? And here we return to the central paradox of special education. By not recommending my student for special education services, I am also making the decision to deprive him or her of a certain set of educational benefits and legal protections that he would not otherwise be entitled

to. It is a Terrible Bargain; to sacrifice a students autonomy in exchange for the promise of future benefits that may or may not come to fruition. On the other hand, a teacher, in good conscience, should never want to refuse a struggling student access to resources that could benefit him or her. [18:05] The fact remains that, statistically, students in special education settings do not receive an equal education to their general education peers. As special education teachers, our number one priority and guiding principle ought to be to always secure the absolute best education for our students. In seems clear that special education especially special education served in a restrictive setting, is not best practice for many of our students. And yet, on the other hand, we cannot say categorically that it is inappropriate for all students, or that it is never beneficial. [18:35] There are no easy or simple answers to solve the ongoing problems of the overrepresentation of African Americans in special education, and the discriminations that they encounter there. Despite the implementation of mechanisms designed to best serve students with disabilities, there continues to be daily injustices committed against them, not by individuals, but on a systemic level. I believe that this state of affairs has been ignored by those in a position to effect meaningful change, that, at best, it has been treated as piecemeal, as something to be corrected, and not as a holistic system. By looking at the state of special education through the lenses of social justice and of critical race theory, I believe that we could see meaningful change within he field. [19:20]

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