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The U S Department of Education published a request for information in the Federal Register today. DOE is seeking public comment on the steps it should take to address disproportionality based upon race and ethnicity in special education.
The Department of Education wants your comments on the actions it should take to:
- significant disproportionality based on race and ethnicity in the:
- identification of children as children with disabilities, including identification by disability category;
- placement of children with disabilities in particular educational settings; and
- the incidence, duration, and type of disciplinary action taken with respect to children with disabilities; and
- ensuring that funds reserved for comprehensive, coordinated early intervening services under Part B of the IDEA are used to effectively address significant disproportionality.
All comments should have the docket # (Docket No. ED-2014-OSERS-0058) and the phrase “CEIS and Significant Disproportionality” near the top of the comments.
You can submit your comments electronically at www.regulations.gov
Or you can mail or deliver them to Larry Ringer, Attention: IDEA Determinations RFI, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW., Room 4032, Potomac Center Plaza (PCP), Washington, DC 20202-2600.
You can review the Federal Register posting here. Other information is available on the Department's website here.
If those issue is important to you, make your voice heard.
Disproportionality was formally acknowledged in the special education literature more than four decades ago (e.g., Dunn, 1968) and has since gar- nered considerable attention throughout the litera- ture, federal policy (e.g., 2004 amendments to the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act [IDEA] requiring state monitoring of dispropor- tionality), case law (e.g., Guadalupe Organization v. Tempe Elementary School District No. 3, 1978; Larry P. v. Riles, 1984), and professional arenas (e.g., national technical assistance centers, training programs). Donovan and Cross (2002) described disproportionality as a paradox of special educa- tion in that identification is meant to allocate nec- essary and appropriate services and additional resources for students with disabilities, but it may also lead to stigmatization, segregation, exposure to low expectations, receipt of weak curriculum, and constraint of postschool outcomes. Scholars have also questioned the effectiveness of special education, and recent research indicates that ser- vices have negligible or negative effects on the learning and behavioral outcomes of elementary students (Morgan, Frisco, Farkas, & Hibel, 2010). Together, these issues underpin concerns about differential identification and its implications. Why do they limit the legislation to race or ethnicity ? Why do they limit the requirement to provide print to print disabled people who are blind or dyslexic but not jus plain ole print disabled diagnosed by multiple experts. The IEP team which is the way the minority is denied the right to a education" will "consider " it and so nothing. I hate that I am in bed now with about 1000 pages of a due process that the dead line is again coming up so the two year limit doesn't turn on us.
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