What accounts for the disproportionately high representation of Ells in special education?

Overrepresentation is a chronic issue that requires our attention. On many levels, this is likely occurring due to educators' lack of training, familiarity, and preparedness to teach diverse populations. That is, students who are “different” from their teachers are all too often regarded as having disabilities.

What factors are associated with the disproportionate representation in special education?

Research indicates that factors such as test bias, poverty, poor general education instruction, and insufficient professional development for working with diverse students can cause this overrepresentation.

Why are there more ELL students in special education?

Research indicates that one of the factors affecting this overrepresentation of ELs is the difficulty educators have distinguishing students who truly have special education needs from students who are learning English as a second language (Artiles & Klingner, 2006).

Why do you think that some groups of students are disproportionately represented in special education?

Possible causes of disproportionate special education representation are psychometric test bias, socio- demographic factors, unequal opportunity in general education (the most consistent findings in education research is that students achieve in direct proportion to their opportunity to learn), teacher ethnicity (as ...

What group has especially been disproportionately represented in special education?

In special education, there is a disproportionate representation of students of color and those who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Under- and over-identification of ELLs in special education

Which student groups are disproportionately represented in special education and non academic classes?

Special education identification

4 Hispanic,5 Black, and Native students all have higher risk ratios for being identified with disabilities than White students. 6 The overrepresentation of children in special education programs causes short-term and long-term harm, specifically for students of color.

Which groups of students are overrepresented in special education?

Minority groups are overrepresented in special education. However, in gifted programs, Asian and Pacific Islanders are overrepresented while other minority groups, such as African American, Native American, and Hispanic/Latinos are underrepresented(page 89).

Why are minorities disproportionately diagnosed with learning disabilities?

Many researchers are concerned that disproportionate identification of racial/ethnic minorities with learning disabilities is part of the long history of racism and stratification within education (Patton 1998; Skiba et al. 2008). Some attribute disproportionality to blatant educator racism (Anderson 1997; Skiba et al.

What is the root cause analysis for disproportionality?

Root Cause Analysis is a process school districts, regional/county organizations, and state departments of education use to identify the basis for the disproportionality. Stakeholders triangulate and analyze multiple data points to discern patterns of behavior and determine impetus for the disproportionality.

Which was the largest group of students with a disability?

Members of the largest group of students with disabilities have learning disabilities.

Are ELL students overrepresented in special education?

Although ELLs were not overrepresented at the district level, they found “English language learners [were] 27% more likely to be placed [in special education programs] in elementary grades and almost twice as likely to be placed in secondary grades” (p. 127).

Why do ELL students struggle with learning English?

ELL students struggle academically for a variety of reasons. Think about it—the challenges of learning a new language, the many exceptions in the English language, and differences in regional dialects—they're all overwhelming factors that can frustrate your ELL students.

Why do ELLs tend to be under or over identified for special education?

The first and most significant reason for the tendency to overidentify ELLs as in need of special education is that the assessment of proficiency and its manifestations among ELLs is fraught with difficulty.

Why is disproportionality a problem in special education?

Why Is Disproportionality a Problem? When schools have higher numbers of certain ethnic or minority students enrolled in special education that they should have by statistical standards, it signals the possibility that some of the students may not be truly disabled and may have been incorrectly identified.

Are black children disproportionately overrepresented in special education?

The debate over over representation in special education

The most credible studies allow researchers to control for a rich set of student-level characteristics, rather than using data aggregated to the district level, and firmly establish that blacks are disproportionately under-represented.

What is the concept of disproportionality?

The term disproportionate means unequal or out of proportion. Although there are discrepancies in many areas, disproportionality in special education is generally referring to racial and ethnic discrepancies that exist in the identification, placement, and discipline of students with disabilities.

What are the 5 Whys of root cause analysis?

The Five Why's is a brainstorming method where the audience asks repeatedly the question "Why" until the root cause of a problem is identified and the solution is clear.

What are the 5 steps of root cause analysis?

What is the 5 Whys technique?

Five whys (or 5 whys) is an iterative interrogative technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem. The primary goal of the technique is to determine the root cause of a defect or problem by repeating the question "Why?" five times.

How do you fix disproportionality in special education?

Are minority children disproportionately represented in early intervention and early childhood special education?

Racial and economic disparities occur in access to early intervention and early childhood special education screening, identification, and referral. Evidence shows racial disparities in developmental screening and early intervention referral and identification with these disparities getting larger over time.

Are students of color overrepresented in special education?

The current process of identifying districts for significant disproportionality in special education was built over two decades of evidence that students of color were overrepresented in special education populations.

What does overrepresented mean in special education?

Overrepresentation is defined “as the representation of a group in a category that exceeds our expectations for that group, or differs substantially from the representation of others in that category” (Skiba et al., 2008: 266). From: International Encyclopedia of Education (Third Edition), 2010.

Why is cultural diversity a concern for special educators?

What are the Challenges of Diversity? One of the first issues of special education is identification of deficits. Children with different racial, ethnic or language backgrounds may have difficulty understanding classroom instruction and may not actually have special needs.

Which of the following groups are generally underrepresented in special education?

Summary: A new federally funded study finds that racial, ethnic, and language minority elementary- and middle-school students are less likely than otherwise similar white, English-speaking children to be identified as having disabilities and, as a result, are disproportionately underrepresented in special education.