Dear All,

I had a defense meeting which is taking longer than expected. My apologies for not being able to attend.

It should be completed quickly and when done, I will join the meeting.

Best

Dr. Eslami

From: Burke, Mack <Mack_Burke@baylor.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2024 12:27 PM
To: project.leer@lists.it.utsa.edu; project.diverse@lists.it.utsa.edu
Subject: [Project.diverse] Over/under representation in sped

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Being sent papers to review on the over/under representation issue for some reason…this is one part I put in for a recommendation…the issue I thinking more and more is not so much under/over representation in special education- it varies according to category, rather, it is an issue of “attribution” of the over/under issue that is important to understand and unpack…MDB

Most importantly, expand into a paragraph in terms of "attribution" of underrepresentation or overrepresentation. The rub or point of contention is the different results across the studies in terms of the risk factor or covariate adjustment- which flips the odds ratios from overrepresentation (which has been the assumption for 20+ years) to underrepresentation. That as a raw number, there is overrepresentation, but when risk factors/indicators/markers are included in the analysis, the odds ratios indicate underrepresentation.

"Disability under-identification in U.S. elementary schools may be contributing to social inequities including lower academic achievement, reduced access to mental health services, and greater rates of exclusionary discipline, adjudication, and incarceration disproportionately experienced by schoolchildren who are racial, ethnic, or language minorities across the life course (Moody, 2016)."

Various attributions are:

a. That special education is institutionally racist/biased (with the implication it should be substantially reformed, if not dismantled and folded into general education).

b. That while there are false positives and false negatives, there are real risk factors that impact disproportionality in that racial, ethnic, or language minorities are exposed to that are causal in contributing to disparities and the disparities reflect differences in the presence of disability at the group level.

c. The process for identification itself is implicitly, if not explicitly biased against or promotes, over/under identification racial, ethnic, or language minorities. The categories of disability are "socially constructed" in ways that are biased toward racial, ethnic, or language minorities and therefore "not objectively real."

d. The categories are poorly defined (e.g., what is the difference in LD and garden variety reading problems or ED and garden variety discipline problems or ADHD and garden variety wandering mind) and biased toward racial, ethnic, or language minorities. Someone must refer students as part of child find, and general education is institutionally racist or biased in either over (or under) referring racial, ethnic, or language minorities as possibility having a disability (with the implication that schools need to make more use of exclusionary clauses for social maladjustment for example in ED, not less.)

f. Students from racial, ethnic, or language who are being identified for services have real needs, but as the disabilities are socially constructed, there should be other ways to serve them. Other areas should be focused on instead as it is a general education problem, not a special education issue (prevention, MTSS, etc.).

g. Some combination of a-f?

One can now see the field splitting on the issue, with those supporting CRT/Discrit from Disability Studies perspectives with its emphasis on identity, intersectionality, and oppression as having a negative view of special education in the attribution:

Is a bridge even possible over troubled water? The field of special education negates the overrepresentation of minority students: a DisCrit

Analysis: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13613324.2019.1599343

Others see it negative views in attribution more to do with politics than science: Kaufman et al.:

On cultural politics in special education: Is much of it justifiable?

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1044207318822262

"At the core of cultural politics in special education is the argument that unless equal proportions of all specifiable cultural groups are identified for special education and receive both placements and services in equal proportions to all other cultural groups, we should assume that cultural bias or incompetence is the primary explanation for disproportionality."

And as Morgan et al. point out, there is a need for additional special services to address other disparities related to, in this case special health services, but similar studies in mental health and health disparities, in the under-identification of racial, ethnic, or language minorities, not less, in other areas:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022347622008460