Overrepresentation In Special Education Essay

The United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights shows that there has been a constant overrepresentation of minority children in what is known as special education courses. The majority of this overrepresentation occurs for African American children. Unfortunately this has been occurring for years, during the 1980’s African American students only made up sixteen percent of the total school population make up, however they represented thirty-eight percent of children that were in classes for students that were in need of special education courses. Forty years later this is still occurring, there is still an overrepresentation of African American children in special education courses, which leads to an overrepresentation of African

2009) . More specially, students who have emotional needs and learning disabilities are usually pushed into the juvenile just system. Studies suggest that there is a large amount of schools that fail to identify students that actually are eligible for special education. There is a constant problem of confusing (or inaccurately labeling) a student who actually has behavioral issues due to emotional disturbance with a student who is in need of special education services. The educational system’s failure to recognize and address this leads to many of our minority students in the juvenile detention system. It is important to know that the majority of these students are African American and when comparing to white students African American students are four times more likely to be referred to special education services.

In, The Gestalt of The School-To Prison Pipeline: The Duality of Overrepresentation of Minorities In Special Education and Racial Disparity In School Discipline on Minorities, author Torin Togut outlines a long term relationship African American children have had with the United States of America’s justice system. What led Togut to dive into this study is the story of now Dr. Billy Hawkins. According to