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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Study Finds Racial Bias In Special Ed |
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by Jay Mathews/Washington Post
(No verified email address) |
05 Mar 2001
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The issue of tracking of black children described in the following article is just one of the issues that the Champaign schools need to address. This Harvard study shows that it is a problem that extends beyond isolated school systems. Racism was "outlawed" in an official sense, but it is still a systemic problem that must be addressed by going beyond the window-dressing of simply removing discriminatory laws. |
Black children are almost three times as likely as white children to be labeled mentally retarded, forcing them into special education classes where progress is slow and trained teachers are in short supply, according to reports released yesterday by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University.
One of the most troubling findings, researchers said, was that black boys living in wealthier communities with better schools and more white classmates were at greater risk of being labeled mentally retarded and sent to special classes than those attending predominantly black, low-income schools.
Virginia Commonwealth University researcher Donald P. Oswald, along with colleagues from VCU and East Tennessee State University, detected the trend in data on 24 million students. They said the wealthier schools appeared to have succumbed to "systemic bias" that allowed "a substantial number" of black students to be "labeled mentally retarded inappropriately."
Many educators and parents have long been troubled by large numbers of minority children assigned to slow-moving special education classes because of academic trouble or misbehavior. Experts said the reports released yesterday provide some of the most compelling evidence to date that poor training and racial bias may have led some educators to write children off too soon.
Follow link below for complete article: |
See also:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16267-2001Mar2.html
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