Underrepresentation In Education

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Data obtained in 2002 from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) show that minorities including African American, Hispanic and American Indian students are severely underrepresented in GATE programs, and the underrepresentation is always greater than 40 percent (Ford, Grantham & Whiting, 2008). Statistically, African American students are overly represented in Special Education programs in part due to the lack of accurate identification. The publication of A Nation at Risk reported alarming data that indicated that as much as 20 percent of the students that dropped out of school were in fact gifted and not identified (as cited by Ford, 1992).