A Critical Policy Analysis of Local Policy Implementation to Reduce Racial Disparities in Special Education

• In Event: What Is Democracy to the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act? Confronting Racism in IDEA

Abstract

Purpose
Students of color with disabilities and their families experience multiple forms of intersectional marginalization. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) introduced 20 State Performance Plans (SPP) indicators in 2004, offering a framework to monitor a state’s implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). However, the SPP indicators have become a procedural checklist rather than a substantive tool to address racial disparities in special education (Author, 2018). This study aims to synthesize qualitative studies on how local stakeholders interpret and implement IDEA policies, related to SPP indicators 4 (disciplinary removal), 5 (least restrictive environment placement), 8 (parental rights), and 9 and 10 (disproportionate representation of students of color in special education).

Theoretical Framework
We employ critical policy analysis (CPA) in the education framework (Young & Diem, 2014) to understand the micro-level implementation of IDEA and its SPP indicators. CPA in education accentuates how local racial histories, resources, and stakeholders’ perceptions of education problems interdependently shape diverging interpretations and appropriation of educational policies (Diem et al., 2019). It also highlights the complex roles and dynamics of policy actors involved in local policy implementation.

Methods and Data Resources
We synthesized findings from special education policy studies, focusing on local stakeholders’ interpretation and implementation of equity-intended special education policies, specifically SSP indicators 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10. Our review included 16 empirical studies from 2004 to June 2023, with keywords used in databases such as APA PsycInfo, ERIC, Academic Search Premier, and Education Research Complete. We coded qualitative empirical studies based on several dimensions, including corresponding SPP indicators, local policy actors, geographical, historical, and sociopolitical contexts, and policy implementation mechanisms.

Results
Racial disparities persist in special education despite equity-oriented federal policies. Such disparities are noticeable in referral and placement processes, often driven by a positivist logic that ignores historical, cultural, and socioemotional factors and a symbolic compliance to IDEA mandates without scrutinizing disproportionality’s root causes (e.g., Craft & Howley, 2018). District leaders tend to approach racial disproportionality from race-neutral technical perspectives, ignoring segregation and racial isolation’s socio-spatial history and impact on education (e.g., Tefera & Fischman, 2020). Additionally, parents of color face difficulties accessing resources and exerting authentic decision-making power. Lack of adequate cultural liaisons or language support services further intensifies power imbalances, hindering parents from full participation and effective advocacy for their children (Cioè-Peña, 2020).

Scholarly Significance
This review reveals special education policy implementation is complex and non-linear, intricately woven with racial ideologies, local politics, histories, diverging policy actors’ interests, and competing policies. Addressing racialized outcome disparities in special education requires an epistemological shift from a pathologizing framing of students of color and their families (e.g., biological and/or cultural deficits and adverse family environments) to historicized, intersectional, and spatial perspectives. Without these lenses, equity-intended special education policies (un)knowingly erase structural inequalities and historical entanglement of racism and ableism, thereby contributing to color-evasive and technical solutions that further marginalize students of color with disabilities and their families.

Authors

• Dosun Ko, Santa Clara University

• Dian Mawene, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Sumin Lim, Hunter College

• Yehyang Lee, Syracuse University

• Jahyun Yoo, University of Wisconsin - Madison