Evidence of Anti-Racist Educators: Disrupting the Racialized Practice of Resegregation in Special Education

• In Event: A Collection of Critical Race Counterstories: Disrupting Resegregation in Special Education Using QuantCrit

Abstract

Objectives
The field of Special Education urgently needs research, aligned with QuantCrit, to examine the extent that anti-racist educators can disrupt the racialized practice of resegregation in special education. We analyzed longitudinal Delaware Data (K-12, 1014-2021) to answer the following research questions: a) To what extent are Students of Color resegregated (overrepresented) in special education over time (2014-2021)? and b) What effect does anti-racist teaching have on disrupting resegregation in special education over time?

Theoretical Framework
Anchored within Critical Race Theory, QuantCrit problematizes color-evasive approaches that use statistics to frame Communities of Color as deficient (Gillborn et. al, 2018). For example, the resegregation of students in special education is abetted by quantitative research (Morgan et al., 2017). Thus, we employ QuantCrit as a theoretical, methodological, and political guide to innovate strategies that animate an anti-racist quantitative research agenda in education.

Methods
We used two modeling approaches in a Critical Structural Equation Modeling framework (Authors, 2024). Table 1 highlights the benefits and data for each model. First, we used latent discrete-time to-event models to examine one cohort of students, starting in kindergarten of the 2014 school year (Raykov et al., 2018). This longitudinal model examined the extent that Students of Color are resegregated in special education over seven years. Next, we defined and incorporated an anti-racist teaching phantom variable (latent) in the models above (Leite et al., 2022) to analyze the effects of anti-racist educators in preventing resegregation.
For analyses, we examined the resegregation of Students of Color, based on their intersecting identities of race/ethnicity and gender. The reference group in our models was white girls and a simulated reference group.

Data
In August of 2022, we formed a partnership with the Delaware Department of Education, gaining access to Delaware statewide data, to “a) inform practices and curricula to prevent resegregation in special education; and b) develop implications for policy at the school district, state, and federal levels. Delaware is becoming an increasingly diverse community, with a growing number of Black and Latinx residents. Rapid demographic shifts in places like Delaware are signaling concerns about how schools, and other institutions, are responding to these shifts. Given these reasons, we believe Delaware is an appropriate–and increasingly urgent–site for this study.

Results
Our results show compelling evidence. Black and Latinx boys and girls, in comparison to white girls, had significantly higher probabilities of being resegregated in special education over seven years. However, anti-racist educators dramatically reduced resegregation in special education for Black and Latinx boys and girls.

Scholarly Significance
From a QuantCrit perspective, these results show the need for transformative changes in the Delaware public schooling system. Therefore, we collaborated with the Delaware Department of Education to develop regulations and policy, while also considering the need for an anti-racist special education model.

Authors

• Nicholas S. Bell, University of Connecticut

• Zachary K. Collier, University of Connecticut

• Donna Y. Ford, The Ohio State University

• Verónica Nelly Vélez, Western Washington University

• Joshua Sukumar, University of Connecticut