Are Special Education Data Ever “Race Neutral”? Reporting Educational Environments Data by Race and Ethnicity

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs collects data on how states implement the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act through the mandated State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR). Some indicators in the SPP/APR require state educational agencies (SEAs) to report data by race and ethnicity. These state-level reports consistently show that students of color with disabilities spend the most time in separate educational settings such as resource rooms and special day classes. Despite the racial and ethnic discrepancies in these data, SEAs do not report educational environments for children with disabilities by race and ethnicity at the local level. As a result, the public can only see racialized patterns in educational environments at the state level, not within local educational agencies. Race and ethnicity are important factors in addressing educational inequities. This article describes current special education data reporting requirements related to educational environments and offers policy, practice, and research implications for reporting race and ethnicity with these data.