Overrepresentation In Special Education Case Study

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Overrepresentation of minorities is an increasing problem in schools today; it has been an ongoing issue for some time now but has yet to be resolved. Overrepresentation is defined as a disproportionate representation of a racial or ethnic group in special education compared their overall population. This has been seen in special education programs for students with learning disabilities, severe emotional and behavioral disabilities, and mental disabilities (Patton, 1998). Disproportionality is occurring through the process of students being referred by teachers to special education after they have failed to achieve in the general education classroom, the reasons for why they are not succeeding is still being debated today. Whether it is…show more content…
This has caused the validity of these diagnoses to be called into question, whether the students have true disabilities or if there was chances of misidentification. The misidentification is especially brought to light when there is an expansive discrepancy in identification rates throughout districts and states(NASP, 2013). Comparatively in low- frequency categories, such as blindness and serious physical impairment, there is rarely any dispute because of their medical bases, and because there is generally no disproportionality observed (NASP, 2013). Overrepresentation is a complicated situation where multiple factors play a part, which varies by certain groups and contexts (Kewskow, 2013). African American students have been overrepresented for more than 30 years, especially students in the categories of ED and MMR. Also consistently overrepresented is Native American students and Latino student, where they have the highest level of enrollment state-wise and throughout districts (A’Vant, Baker, Chandler, McKinney, Sayles & Sullivan,…show more content…
As discussed before, there will never be a “perfect test” or anything without error, but striving not to make judgments based on these tests without proper analysis is what is necessary. Though, a continuous effort by school psychologists can be made to find tests or alternative tests to be the least culturally biased (Algozzine et al., 1983). Assessment is only one facet to the overall resolution, though important, it has already been shown that correcting this part of the process makes no difference if not combined with efforts in other areas (Algozzine et al.,
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