Why are there a lot of African American children in Special Education?

Question

This isn't supposed to be a hateful or harmful question, but a question of curiosity. Why does it feel like there is a disproportionate amount of African American children in remedial classes in comparison to other races? Is there a cultural justification for why they may be labeled with a disability or something?

Answer 1

Oh My God, are you serious..I think you need to do some research, and you will see that is so not true...

Dont base things from your school and then try to use it as a generalization.

Answer 2

You're making a gross generalization. That's not true in the huge district ( 28,000- 30 elementary and 15 H.S ) I work for.

Answer 3

There has long been a debate over whether or not I.Q. tests are biased against African-Americans.  There was a court case regarding this:

Hobson v. Hansen (1967, 1969)

The defense argued that tracking was instituted after desegregation to improve educational opportunities for African-American students who exhibited a high incidence of achievement problems.  The effect of the tracking system was to create a disproportionate representation of students from all races in the upper, middle, and lower ability ranks.  In this particular case, 90% of the student population was African-American, but African-Americans made up 95% of the lower track.  The plaintiffs alleged this was a violation of the equal protection principle because the tracking led to unequal educational opportunities for African-American students.  The judge ruled that the available IQ tests did not accurately measure innate ability and that environmental influences from disadvantaged homes might affect scores.  Therefore, the judge concluded that the IQ measures and the tracking decisions were seriously flawed, and he ruled against the use of IQ measures for tracking purposes.  This case established an important legal precedent for the use of standardized IQ tests when disproportionate placements might be a result.  Tracking was not acceptable if based on tests that did not measure innate ability (Reschly & Bersoff, 1999).

http://jneigh.myweb.uga.edu/Laws_and_Leg...

Are I.Q. tests biased?

http://www.psychpage.com/learning/librar...

Answer 4

I think it will depend on individual circumstances...eg: if the area you live in is predominately african american then it may SEEM to be a high proportion when actually it's not!

Also-what is the cultural background-have many of them only just come to america? Maybe they have not been to school, maybe their school system was differnet so they are needing support to adjust to your curriculum, or maybe if its a language barrier its support to make sure they are fully included. Otherwise if they are African-American's who have been in country all their lives, and family have been for many year etc then there may not be a particular reason-just individual children's needs!

Also-some areas where it there may be deprivation can sometimes cause increase in SEN as children do not always have educational tools to support them at home, parents may not be well educated etc....I teach in a deprived area and thats why i have high proportion of SEN in my class.

This is all guess work and assumptions as I have no clue where you are or what the area surrounding you or the type of people livingi n your area!

Answer 5

Simply because a lot a Black American kids in lower income communities suffer from ADD.  Teachers of course aren't able to alleviate the symptoms, so the easiest thing for them to do is just place those kids in Special Ed classes, even though those kids aren't mentally challenged.  It's very unfortunate, but that's what happens.  

Answer 6

Wow - I don't know. I live in a very diverse area and I see the exact opposite.  - hummm. that's interesting

Answer 7

You may be in an area where a higher proportion of African American children are living in poverty compared to their Caucasian counterparts, and if a child is learning disabled and exposed to harsh circumstances due to low income, it may be more likely that the child would need to be in special education.