Connecticut: special education and minorities

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From the NYTimes, November 20, 2005

Connecticut
Special Education and Minorities
By AVI SALZMAN

IN the debate over the achievement gap between white and minority children
in Connecticut, the overrepresentation of black and Hispanic children in
special education classes is among the most sensitive subjects. In
communities throughout the state, minority children are carrying around
labels, like emotionally disturbed and intellectually disabled (formerly
called mentally retarded), that do not accurately describe them, special
education experts said. They said the students are being placed in special
education because educators are misinterpreting behavior problems and
misunderstanding cultural differences.

The issue has forced some school districts to change the way they spend
money on special education, pushed the state to increase monitoring of
special education placement, and prompted administrators to train
educators from districts where the numbers are particularly skewed on how
to deal with racial and ethnic differences in the classroom. "It's one of
what I would call Connecticut's dirty little secrets in education," said
John Brittain, a civil rights lawyer who worked on the landmark
Connecticut education case, Sheff v. O'Neill, that addressed segregation
in public schools.

Since the state began tracking the disproportions in 2002, the disparities
in special education placement among different racial and ethnic groups
have decreased in many school districts. But data compiled by the National
Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems, an organization
funded by the federal government, showed that the overall disproportion in
the state grew worse from 1999 to 2004. No one race should have a
disproportionate number of disabled children, said Dr. Nancy Cappello, an
education consultant for the State Department of Education. "You would
expect it to be proportionate to the demographics of the community," she
said. "There should be no overrepresentation."

Experts who have studied the issue in Connecticut and throughout the
country said disabilities are often misdiagnosed in minority children,
especially boys. Children who are placed in special education for the
wrong reasons face stigmas that are difficult to overcome, psychologists
said. "The child begins to see himself that way," said Dr. Jocelyn Mackey,
an assistant professor of psychology at Southern Connecticut State
University who has worked as a school psychologist in numerous Connecticut
schools.

The issue of overrepresentation of black and Hispanic children has
received particular scrutiny in some of the state's cities, but it also
exists in smaller towns. This year, two municipalities, Norwalk and
Windham, faced sanctions because their policies and procedures for placing
children in special education did not pass muster with the state.

In Norwalk, black students made up more than 36 percent of the population
of special education students in the 2004-5 school year, when the student
body was about 25 percent black, according to statistics from the state
education department.

In Windham, Hispanic students, who were 58 percent of the student body,
made up nearly 64 percent of the special education population and nearly
70 percent of students classified as having a speech or language
impairment.

Paul K. Perzanoski, the superintendent in Windham, said the town's numbers
may seem skewed, but a review of the district's special education
placements indicated that the vast majority were correct; high numbers, he
said, do not necessarily mean that the placements were wrong. He said that
some students had been misidentified and that the district was making
progress in training teachers, improving assessments and intervening early
in difficult cases.

Salvatore Corda, the Norwalk superintendent, was not available for
comment.

In some districts the differences were even starker. In Hartford, for
instance, Hispanics were more than four times as likely as whites to be
identified as having a learning disability. In West Hartford, blacks were
more than five times as likely as whites to be diagnosed as having an
emotional disturbance.

Over all, blacks and Hispanics were 18 percent more likely than whites to
land in special education in Connecticut in the 2004-5 school year,
according to the state. Black students, in addition, were more than twice
as likely to be identified as having an emotional disturbance or an
intellectual disability than their white peers were.

By no means is this a concern only in Connecticut. Disproportions in the
racial makeup of special education classes exist all over the country.
Indeed, Congress made monitoring disproportions in special education one
of the priorities in its reauthorization of the Individuals with
Disabilities in Education Act last year.

Connecticut is not considered one of the states with the most egregious
disproportions, said Troy R. Justesen, the acting director for the Office
of Special Education Programs in the federal Department of Education. As
of 2003, the most recent year for which federal data was available, the
percentage of black students in special education in Connecticut was just
under the national average. Connecticut, however, had a higher percentage
of its Hispanic students in special education than all but five states.

These sorts of discrepancies first gained widespread attention about five
years ago, when the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University released a
study on the issue. A class action lawsuit against the state that was
settled in 2002 also addressed some of these issues. Since then,
overrepresentation has inspired robust debates among educators and
inspired new policies that aim to eliminate the disproportions.

Experts point to a handful of reasons why the disproportions exist.
Teachers, social workers and psychologists often have to make subjective
decisions on whether a child should receive special education services.
Those decisions, along with the tests children take to determine their
intellectual abilities, offer numerous opportunities for bias to creep
into the process, psychologists said. Educators, for instance, can
misinterpret cultural cues as evidence of an emotional or intellectual
disability, said Dr. Mackey of Southern Connecticut State University.

Some of the tests designed to determine a child's intelligence have also
been culturally biased, various psychologists and policy makers said.

Merva Jackson, a social worker and the executive director of the African
Caribbean American Parents of Children with Disabilities, a Hartford
nonprofit group that advocates for parents and calls attention to
overrepresentation, said she has seen cultural cues be misinterpreted. One
mother, for instance, showed her a school evaluation that noted that her
son liked to play with his cousin, whom the child described as "bad," Ms.
Jackson said. The evaluator interpreted the statement as evidence that the
mother had allowed the child to be exposed to "negative influences," not
realizing that the child was using "bad" as a slang term that essentially
meant "cool."

"It really started to speak loudly to the fact that people involved didn't
understand our community," Ms. Jackson said.

Ms. Jackson, whose son was determined to be emotionally disturbed, started
her organization in 1999 to help black parents in Hartford understand
these issues.

For Hispanic students who are first learning English, problems with
language sometimes are misinterpreted as disabilities, said Dr. June
Malone, director of the early-learning division at Action for Bridgeport
Community Development, an organization that provides Head Start programs.
Dr. Malone said she has seen children who are "cognitively intact"
graduate from her program and be placed in special education classes when
all they needed was more language instruction. Statistics show blacks and
Hispanics were more likely to be placed in various categories of special
education in Bridgeport over the last three years.

"If a child speaks another language, they get placed in special
education," Dr. Malone said.

Some said the real problems start early in a child's education. Jean
Smith, a former social worker from Bridgeport, said attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder was diagnosed in her daughter. She said her
daughter and other minority students could remain in general education if
their problems had been addressed earlier.

"Kids like her who are right on the borderline, if they had a little more
attention and smaller class sizes, they wouldn't have to be in the
system," she said.

Educators in urban districts, burdened with packed classrooms, often don't
intervene early enough to deal with the problems of minority children, Dr.
Malone said. As they approach adolescence, the students act out their
frustration, she said. That can intimidate teachers.

"Many times, I believe the staff and faculty are afraid of boys of color,"
Dr. Malone said. "The simplest way to deal with it is to teach the kids
who are easy to teach and warehouse the most difficult ones."

Once the child is referred to the committee, oversight is sometimes too
lax, said Dr. Jay Gottlieb, a professor at Steinhardt School of Education
at New York University who has studied racial disproportions in special
education at schools in Connecticut.

"Committees have not done a good job of refining teacher referrals," Dr.
Gottlieb said. "All too often, clinical teams' decisions simply support
the teacher's judgment."

Indeed, overrepresentation of black and Hispanic children is the kind of
issue that is so complex it can inspire 10 different kinds of
conversations with 10 different experts.

And the solution? That's at least another 10 conversations.

The state's response to this issue was driven partly by a federal class
action lawsuit settled in 2002. P. J. et al v. State of Connecticut, Board
of Education, et al, brought by five children designated as mentally
retarded and their families, compelled the state to closely monitor
districts to see whether they were misdiagnosing illnesses in children or
isolating mentally retarded children from their peers.

Bill Jordan, the father of Patrick Jordan (the P.J. in the suit), of West
Hartford, said he thought the suit pushed the state to make changes, but
added that overrepresentation is a problem "that's going to take a really
long time to address."

Since the settlement, progress has been spotty, according to an advisory
panel created by the settlement. The panel expressed skepticism about the
state's commitment to the settlement's goals in its most recent report
filed in September. It noted "uneven progress" in the state's most
troubled districts and said the rest of the state was "moving too slowly
in the desired direction."

State officials acknowledge that some districts have failed to make
significant progress, but said the process of reforming the special
education system has moved forward over the last few years. Completing the
work is a long-term process.

"Some of it just takes time to turn that ship around," said George
Dowaliby, the chief of the Bureau of Special Education at the state
education department.

For the past four years, for instance, the state has held summits on
racial disproportions in special education, inviting state and national
experts to talk about methods of reducing the disproportions, Dr. Cappello
said. About 30 districts send representatives to the summit, and the
conference also includes teachers, legislators and family members of
children in special education.

Districts that don't show improvements hear from the state. The education
department tracks the number and type of special education placements
throughout the state and red-flags districts where a statistical analysis
indicates a problem. Those districts that appear to be placing too many
minority children in special education classes are visited by monitors who
examine the special education placement process for about a week. This
year, the state is monitoring Bridgeport, Hartford, Stamford and New
Britain.

Districts that continue to lag may be sanctioned, as is the case this year
for Norwalk and Windham. Those two districts must spend 15 percent of the
money they receive for special education services on early-intervention
programs, such as literacy or behavioral-support programs.

Educators from problematic districts have another option, too. The state
has begun holding a program for educators and administrators called
Courageous Conversations on Race, in which participants discuss racial
disparities in education.

Still, some think that the people most directly affected by this issue
have not been invited into these discussions. Ms. Jackson, of African
Caribbean American Parents of Children with Disabilities, said too few
parents and teachers in urban districts realize that their children are
overrepresented in special education. This summer, she held her own summit
on minorities in special education.

"How are you making changes when the people on the front lines don't even
know what's going on?" she asked. "We have to bring these things to the
community level."

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