Reply to Basis PCS runs afoul with the Charter Board over special education instruction

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[quote=Anonymous]Yet another interesting article about disproportionality in special ed: Confronting Inequity in Special Education, Part I: Understanding the Problem of Disproportionality (http://www.nasponline.org/publications/cq/mocq381disproportionality.aspx)

Here's an excerpt:

[quote]The disproportionality literature tends to focus on the disability categories of mental retardation, learning disabilities, and emotional disabilities, as these are the high-incidence disabilities and constitute over 63% of students eligible for special education (U.S. Department of Education [USDOE], 2009). These are also widely regarded as “judgmental” categories because of relatively vague federal and state disability definitions that necessitate a high degree of professional judgment in making normative comparisons to determine eligibility (Klingner et al., 2005). This has led many to question the validity of these diagnoses as true disabilities and the likelihood of misidentification, particularly in light of the wide variation in identification rates across states and districts. In contrast, diagnoses in the low-incidence categories are rarely challenged because of their physical/medical bases, and because disproportionality is not generally observed in these categories. [/quote]

In other words, almost two-thirds of special ed students are eligible due to mental retardation, learning disabilities or emotional disabilities, categories with soft eligibility criteria and in which minorities are significantly over-represented.  On the other hand, minorities are not over-represented in categories based on objective physical or medical findings.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of special ed students at BASIS DC have learning or emotional disabilities.

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