Disproportionality in Special Education

This page is under construction. I am parking it here so I can come back to it properly rather than pretend the question is settled.

The question

Black, Hispanic, and American Indian students are identified for special education, placed in restrictive settings, and disciplined at markedly higher rates than their White peers (National Center for Learning Disabilities [NCLD], 2020). Income and race are closely linked in the United States, so one obvious explanation is poverty rather than race. The harder question is what remains once you account for it.

Why it is not settled

Morgan et al. (2015) analysed nationally representative longitudinal data with extensive covariate adjustment and found that minority children were less likely than otherwise similar White, English-speaking children to be identified as disabled. They replicated the finding across larger samples, including school fixed-effects models, in 2017.

Skiba et al. (2016) responded in the same journal that the conclusion rests on questionable sampling, insufficient support from prior analyses, and a failure to account for the complexities of disproportionality. Morgan and Farkas (2016) replied in that same issue, defending the robustness of their results.

Both sides are looking at real data. They disagree about which comparison is the right one: whether you compare a minority student to all White students, or to White students matched on achievement, poverty, and language status. That choice determines the answer, and choosing it is a judgement about what question you are asking.

What I want to work out here

• Which comparison is the more useful one for a classroom teacher, as opposed to a policymaker.
• Whether under-identification and over-restrictive placement can both be true at once — they are different decisions made at different points.
• What any of this changes about the referral I write on a Tuesday afternoon.

References

Morgan, P. L., & Farkas, G. (2016). Are we helping all the children that we are supposed to be helping? Educational Researcher, 45(3), 226–228.

Morgan, P. L., Farkas, G., Hillemeier, M. M., & Maczuga, S. (2017). Replicated evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in disability identification in U.S. schools. Educational Researcher, 46(6), 305–322. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X17726282

Morgan, P. L., Farkas, G., Hillemeier, M. M., Mattison, R., Maczuga, S., Li, H., & Cook, M. (2015). Minorities are disproportionately underrepresented in special education. Educational Researcher, 44(5), 278–292. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X15591157

National Center for Learning Disabilities. (2020). Significant disproportionality in special education: Current trends and actions for impact. National Center for Learning Disabilities.

Skiba, R. J., Artiles, A. J., Kozleski, E. B., Losen, D. J., & Harry, E. G. (2016). Risks and consequences of oversimplifying educational inequities: A response to Morgan et al. (2015). Educational Researcher, 45(3), 221–225. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X16644606