Understanding Overrepresentation of Minority Students in Special Education and Some Recs

Claudia is the Endowed Joan Wieler Arno 49 Professor at…

I wanted to highlight the following article from Education Week back on October 13, 2011 print issue. The article written by Anthony Rebora provides information on the issue of overrepresentation of students of color in special education and what we can do to address the issue. He interviews some leading researchers including
Janette Klingner a professor of education at the University of Colorado and co-author of Why Are So Many Minority Students in Special Education?: Understanding Race & Disability in Schools
Edward Fergus-Arcia, deputy director of New York University’s Metropolitan Center for Urban Education
Elizabeth Kozleski, a professor at Arizona State University and a principal investigator with the Equity Alliance
H. Richard Milner IV, an associate professor of education at Vanderbilt University and the author of Start Where You Are, But Don’t Stay There: Understanding Diversity, Opportunity Gaps, and Teaching in Today’s Classrooms
Amanda VanDerHeyden, an education consultant and researcher
Claudia Rinaldi(myself :). Assistant Director of the Urban Special Education Leadership Collaborative (www.urbancollaborative.org)

The author does a great job summarizing a variety of education fields working on this issue and provides solid recommendations to begin looking at the program. I hope he does a follow up article in the near future.
Here is the link:
http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/2011/10/13/01disproportion.h05.html?

Claudia Rinaldi, Ph.D.

Claudia is the Endowed Joan Wieler Arno 49 Professor at Lasell University. She is currently a full professor of education and chair of the Education Program. Claudia has been a teacher, researcher, consultant, and professor of special education.