Minority Representation :: essays papers

Minority Representation The bug out of nonage representation in particular(a) education came into the forefront for educators, p atomic number 18nts and politicians during the middle 1990s. In 1992, Black students accounted for 16 percent of the total U.S. student population, simply represented 32 percent of students in programs for mild mental retardation, 29 percent in programs for moderate mental retardation, and 24 percent in programs for serious emotional disturbance (Robertson, Kushner, Starks, & Dreschler, 1994). This overrepresentation of Black and other nonage students in special education is an ongoing national problem. This problem will be addressed according to the following criteria regarding minority representation in special education. The first issue where minority students in special education argon concerned is that minority students may be unserved or receive serve that do not meet their needs. Another issue that will be discussed is that some minori ty students may be misclassified or inappropriately labelled especially in the area of mental retardation and serious emotional disturbance. The final issue that will be discussed is the actual placement of minority students in special education programs may be a mold of discrimination.The purpose of this paper is to inform and expand upon minority overrepresentation and the needs of minority students. Minority students may be unserved or receive services that do not meet their needs. Testing constraints such as high relative incidence of ethnic or linguistic minorities and low socio-economic status can tether to minority students not receiving services that meet their needs. Research shows that socio-political factors such as social deviance variables (eg. school suspension and corporal punishment) and school rage also lead to minority students being unserved in special education. appointment and placement practices have caused problems with identification because of the vagu eness of the criteria for elegibility (Artiles, Aguirre-Munoz, Abedi, 1998). Congress has found that although minority students are increasing in number in schools, many minority students are not receiving a free, appropriate public education. Students who are at a high risk of failure are those who live in urban and high poverty environments because they have been in appropriately identified and placed or not placed at all in special education.