r: special education has made considerable advances in researcb, policy, and practice in its short history. However, students fiom bistorically underserved groups continue to be disproportionately identified as requiring special education. Support for color-blind practices and policies can justify racial disproportionality in special education and signal a retrenchment to deficit views about students fiom historically underserved groups. We respond to these emerging concerns through an analysis of arguments that justify disproportionality. We also identify explanations of the problem and critique tbe views of culture that underlie these explanations. We conclude with a brief discussion of implications and future directions.

In this article, we present a conceptual framework for addressing the disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education. The cornerstone of our approach to addressing disproportionate representation is through the creation of culturally responsive educational systems. Our goal is to assist practitioners, researchers, and policy makers in coalescing around culturally responsive, evidence-based interventions and strategic improvements in practice and policy to improve students’ educational opportunities in general education and reduce inappropriate referrals to and placement in special education. We envision this work as cutting across three interrelated domains: policies, practices, and people. Policies include those guidelines enacted at federal, state, district, and school levels that influence funding, resource allocation, accountability, and other key aspects of schooling. We use the notion of practice in two ways, in the instrumental sense of daily practices that all cultural beings engage in to navigate and survive their worlds, and also in a technical sense to describe the procedures and strategies devised for the purpose of maximizing students’ learning outcomes. People include all those in the broad educational system: administrators, teacher educators, teachers, community members, families, and the children whose opportunities we wish to improve.

In this technical comment, we argue that Morgan et al.’s claim that there is no minority overrepresentation in special education is in error due to (a) sampling considerations, (b) inadequate support from previous and current analyses, and (c) their failure to consider the complexities of special education disproportionality.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) data that states and U.S. territories report from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and discuss the status of the most restrictive special education placement settings for students with disabilities. In this analysis, we found that (a) states do not set rigorous improvement goals to reduce restrictive placements, (b) the percentage of students with disabilities placed in restrictive placements have remained essentially unchanged over the past decade, and (c) students with low-incidence (severe) disabilities are disproportionally placed in restrictive placements. These results suggest that segregated educational experiences continue for thousands of students with disabilities in spite of evidence that shows that opportunities to learn and develop are enhanced in more inclusive educational settings.

When a family finds out their child has a disability, they enter the world of special education which has its own terminology, rules, settings, and personnel. In addition to grappling with the meaning of their child's special needs, families are also thrown into the role of principle advocate for their child. This research study presents the findings from focus groups conducted with 27 diverse families on their efforts to obtain the best educational outcomes for their children. In this article, Robyn Hess, Elizabeth Kozleski, and Amy Molina bring their collective experiences as a school psychologist, special education teacher, and bilingual counselor, to bear on this topic and frame the issue from a systemic perspective. They argue that engaging in conversation with diverse families around their needs as well as assisting them in their efforts to advocate for their child is the first step in creating more equal partnerships between diverse parents of children with special needs and educational professionals. Parental Voice 3Politicians, educators, researchers, policy analysts, and the media have all scrutinized the value of special education. In the United States, the passage of IDEIA 2004 (Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of , H.R. 1350 , 108th Cong., 2004, required special education to demonstrate the same accountability as that of the broader educational enterprise. Accordingly, students with disabilities are now required to demonstrate their knowledge and skills on standards-based assessments thereby ensuring that schools are held accountable for the academic progress for students with and without disabilities. By increasing accountability standards, this legislation attempts to guarantee that schools provide students with disabilities opportunities to learn within the general education curriculum. While special educators have long advocated for greater inclusion of students with disabilities, many school systems still provide separate classrooms, if not schools, to educate these students.While on one hand, those who advocate for separate educational settings would argue that these systems allow schools to meet the special needs of children, to protect them and effectively educate all students (Barton, 2004), others would contend that these structures create barriers (Oliver, 1996) and encourage negative labels and stereotypes (Barnes, 1991 cited in Barton, 2004. Given that individuals with disabilities experience higher rates of unemployment and underemployment, higher dropout rates and more restricted community participation relative to others without disabilities (Browning, Dunn, Rabren, & Whetstone, 1995; National Center for Education Statistics, 2000); one might question the efficacy of current practices in preparing individuals for post-schooling outcomes. Of further concern, is the long history of special education in serving a disproportionate number of students of color (Donovan & Cross, 2002; Losen & Orfield, 2002). Given these shortcomings, the educational fi...

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In theory, inclusive education is about all students and focuses on student presence, participation, acceptance, and achievement. In practice, inclusive education is multiplicity of discourses and practices. Historically, inclusive education is situated within waves of evolution.The first wave saw the establishment of general rights for children with disabilities, but some children-especially those with behavioral problems and severe intellectual disabilitiesremained unrecognized outsiders in schools and school communities. Subsequent waves of inclusive education have had differential impacts in developed and developing countries.A review of primarily U.S. and British inclusive education research at the school and classroom levels identified four shortcomings: inclusive education theory has outpaced its practice; inclusive education research ignores the influences of globalization forces; inclusive education theorization lacks conceptual clarity; and a substantial gap between the views of learning that informs research conducted either at the classroom level or the school level. In addition, views of learning in classroom and school based studies rely on different theoretical stipulations. Lack of cross-fertilization between classroom-and school-based inclusive education research is a missed opportunity for enriching this emerging knowledge base. Recommended is a re-mediation in the relationship between researchers and their work with theories that offer a systematic understanding of the cultural and political nature of learning. Learning in Inclusive Education Research 3Learning in Inclusive Education Research: Re-Mediating Theory and Methods with a Transformative AgendaInclusive education is a highly visible yet contentious notion in contemporary education reform due to conceptual, historical, and pragmatic reasons. From a conceptual perspective, the definition of inclusion is still debated, ranging from physical placement in general education classrooms to the transformation of entire educational systems. However, inclusive education tends to be defined in many professional and popular contexts as merely the placement of a student with disabilities in mainstream programs alongside nondisabled individuals. But even when inclusion is defined in such simplistic terms, the evidence suggests where a student with disabilities is educated has important correlates. For instance, a study of 11,000 students in the U.S. shows that students with disabilities who spend more time in general education classrooms tend to be absent less, perform closer to grade level than their peers in pull-out settings, and have higher achievement test scores (Blackorby et al., 2005). On the other hand, in the same study students with disabilities generally perform more poorly than their same grade peers without disabilities. In particular, unlike students with learning and sensory disabilities, students with mental retardation and autism cluster around the low end of standardized achievement tests.While some differences in outcomes...

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