The Need for Coordinated Early Intervening Services: Persistent Patterns of Overrepresentation in Special Education

• In Event: Coordinated Early Intervening Services as a Solution for Significant Disproportionality: What Have We Learned?

Abstract

Objectives or Purposes.
We analyze Morgan et al.’s (2015) recently published study, which found that “minority children were consistently less likely than otherwise similar White, English-speaking children to be identified as disabled and so to receive special education services” and attempt to place these results in the context of mainstream disproportionality research that has consistently come to the opposite conclusion.

Perspectives/Theoretical Framework.
Special education is not appropriate for all struggling children. Other options, within the general education framework, must and should be tried first. Overidentification of a racial/ethnic group is an indicator that this has failed. For this reason, Federal law requires that districts with significant racial/ethnic disproportionality in the identification of children with special needs use coordinated early intervening services (CEIS) to try to serve the needs of the affected group of children before they are identified. This is an appropriate response to overidentification; covariate analyses can be very helpful in analyzing the root causes and planning these interventions, but cannot be used to excuse the overidentifications.

Methods, Techniques, Modes of Inquiry.
We will analyze and critique Morgan et al.’s paper, focusing both on methodology (e.g. how representative was the ECLS-K sample of special needs students?) and on the uses of the results. Additionally, we will use an official, universal data set and calculate, for each major racial/ethnic group, and over a period of three to five years, their risk of placement into special education and their risk ratio as compared with other racial/ethnic groups.

Data Sources, Evidence, Objects or Materials.
Our data sources are the Common Core of Data for overall student enrollment by race/ethnicity; and IDEA data on counts of children identified for special education services by special education category and by race and ethnicity. These sources are both required, official data. All children ages six to 21 in the United States are included. We will also utilize the public use ECLS-K data to evaluate how the distribution of disability placements compares with our national data.

Results.
In contrast to its title, the article by Morgan et al. does not demonstrate underrepresentation of minority children. Instead it demonstrates that the issues leading to overrepresentation of some groups of minority children must be addressed prior to placement in special education.

On a national level, there is a persistent pattern of overrepresentation of Black students in special education, especially in the categories of emotional disturbance and intellectual disability. Asian students are persistently underidentified in all categories of special education. Results are mixed for Hispanic students.

Scholarly or scientific significance.
The use of covariates in equity research is of great scientific and policy-making significance. We integrate the value brought to the table by Morgan et al.’s work into the knowledge we have re-iterated with our simpler analysis of an official, universe data set.

Authors

• Amy Bitterman, Westat

• James Bethel, Westat

• Tom E. Munk, Westat

• Weijia Ren, Westat