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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 2,640
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No Racial Quotas in Special Education By Jason L. Riley Wall Street Journal Feb. 13, 2018 6:27 p.m. ET The Trump administration spent much of its first year blocking or delaying its predecessor’s regulations. Thankfully, that work continues apace in year two. Any day now, look for the Education Department to halt implementation of an Obama -era rule on racial disparities in special education that was set to take full effect in July.
Black students are more likely than white students to be placed in special-education classes, and the Obama administration attributed the disparity (along with nearly every black-white gap) to racial bias. Thus in late 2016, weeks before leaving office, Obama officials issued a rule that threatened school districts with financial penalties if they didn’t achieve racial balance in special ed.
The rule, which would effectively impose racial quotas, is likely unconstitutional. Moreover, academic research shows that racial bias is not the cause of disproportionate representation of black pupils in special ed. Anyone who cares about the prospects of minority youngsters should welcome the Trump administration’s decision to put the rule on hold.
A 2015 study by scholars at UC Irvine and Penn State University found that black children are more likely than white children to be born prematurely and have high levels of lead in their blood, among other factors that often result in learning disabilities and speech impairments. When otherwise similar groups of black and white adolescents were compared, the data didn’t show that black students were more likely to be placed in special education classes. In fact, it showed the opposite: “The real problem is that black children are underrepresented in special-education classes when compared with white children with similar levels of academic achievement, behavior and family economic resources,” two of the authors, Paul Morgan and George Farkas, wrote in an op-ed.
To the extent that the Obama-era rule could make teachers and administrators fearing accusations of racial bias too skittish to do their jobs properly, it potentially puts at-risk children at even more risk. Do we want racial proportionality to become more important than matching students with the educational tools that will serve them best? Do we want school districts identifying special-needs kids based on the evidence or based on a desire to stay out of the federal government’s crosshairs? The same logic holds for gifted education and higher education as for special education.
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Joined: Nov 2012
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Visible minority students are known to be under-represented in gifted and higher education. In the study I'm linking below, for comparable levels of student achievement, Black students are 66 per cent less likely than Caucasian peers to be assigned to GT programs, and Latino students 47 per cent less likely. Because I don't believe the study controlled for SES, and low-SES is observed disproportionately among visible minorities, it is reasonable to infer that the true rate of gifted under-identification of visible minorities is higher than estimated. (Low SES --> less enriched environment --> lower achievement --> wider potential gap between ability and achievement for a given student.) http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2332858415622175 (Source for odds ratios.) It's useful to step back from race and think about children as people deserving of education commensurate with their needs. This article speaks to a need to identify and engage children of low-SES families to ensure they, too, receive appropriate advocacy and educational fit. As I'm reading your message, you seem to be suggesting that under-representation of comparably qualified visible minority GT students shouldn't be remedied in public policy by a quota. If not a quota, how should GT schools and universities ensure that visible minority students be appropriately represented in the student body, as commensurate with those students' qualifications?
What is to give light must endure burning.
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Joined: Jan 2012
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One way is universal screening with a non-verbal test. I do not know if the alternate tests are comparable, but it certainly removes some of the biases. In our area, almost all of the schools rely on parent or teacher nominations for testing. Even highly capable parents that were raised in a different educational system may not know how to get their DC the support and assessments that they need. One local district has tried this approach and is seeing dramatic changes in the representation of lower SES and other under represented groups. See an article here: https://www.seattletimes.com/educat...ersal-screening-to-find-gifted-students/While simply finding the child and learning what they may need to achieve optimally is good, it does not solve the problems of equal access, equal opportunity, or the other impacts of lower SES. It is, however, a small step along the road that may lead to better outcomes. Universal testing may also impact all aspects of our failure to provide an education commensurate with the needs of the individual child.
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Joined: Sep 2010
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So... our school district did that for years. Universal screening in 3rd grade with a non verbal test (Ravens Matrices). And then stopped after rampant cheating on the test was exposed (a number of parents downloaded the test from the internet and prepped their kids). These days we are back to teachers and parents nominations, with the results you would expect.
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Joined: Nov 2012
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So... our school district did that for years. Universal screening in 3rd grade with a non verbal test (Ravens Matrices). And then stopped after rampant cheating on the test was exposed (a number of parents downloaded the test from the internet and prepped their kids). These days we are back to teachers and parents nominations, with the results you would expect. Seems a bit heavy-handed of the district. Given that most of the tests are only sold to, and administered by, licensed professionals, I'd think the school would be issuing some complaints to the professional licensing body to tip off any service providers (or trained parents in the student body) who might have enabled the cheating. Professional sanctions would be a good natural consequence for cheating.
What is to give light must endure burning.
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Joined: Apr 2014
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Well, the problem is that the Ravens is so old that it predates many of the test security measures that have been put in place in decades since. There are lots of copies of it already floating around the interweb. The test of choice for nonverbal screening these days is the NNAT. I happened to sit at Jack Naglieri's (the first 'N') breakfast table once, and heard at great length about the racial disproportionality cases he's testified for regarding exactly this topic of under representation of minorities in GT. There is still honest discussion about whether his test is the best way of approaching equity in GT identification (for example, Dr. Lohman, author of the CogAT, claims his test is better), but it's certainly better than teacher nomination.
...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...
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Joined: Jun 2012
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http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.909.589&rep=rep1&type=pdf "The Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test, Second Edition (NNAT2), is used widely to screen students for possible inclusion in talent development programs. The NNAT2 claims to provide a more culturally neutral evaluation of general ability than tests such as Form 6 of the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT6), which has Verbal and Quantitative batteries in addition to a Nonverbal battery. This study compared the performance of 5,833 second graders who took the CogAT6 and 4,038 kindergartners, first graders, and second graders who took the NNAT2 between 2005 and 2011 as part of a grade-wide screening for a gifted program. Comparison between minorities and Whites on the CogAT6 and the NNAT2 found slightly larger gaps on the CogAT6 Composite for Hispanics and English-Language Learners (ELL) but the same gap for Black students. Considered alone, the Nonverbal battery of CogAT6 produced smaller gaps than the NNAT2 for Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and ELL students. Fisher’s exact tests showed no significant differences between the CogAT6 Composite and the NNAT2 in subgroup identification rates at hypothetical cuts for gifted identification (top 20%, 10%, or 5%), except for Asian and ELL students. The CogAT6 Nonverbal score appeared to identify as many or more high-ability students from underrepresented groups as the NNAT2. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition, follow-up on the top 5% showed greater predictive validity for the CogAT6 Composite. These results suggest that gifted programs should not assume that using a figural screening test such as the NNAT2, without other adjustments to selection protocol, will address minority underrepresentation." I was curious when the ST article first came out a few weeks ago and dug up the citation above. Note: if you did read the article carefully the stats seemed might have seemed odd. It appears the district being profiled was screening for 85th percentile which was why the numbers were high. Also which is equally interesting in relation to the journal cite and the different demographic effects are the demographics for NorthShore. Hispanic / Latino of any race(s) 2,435 12.0% American Indian / Alaskan Native 102 0.5% Asian 2,697 13.3% Black / African American 355 1.7% Native Hawaiian / Other Pacific Islander 74 0.4% White 13,255 65.2% Two or More Races 1,405 6.9%
Last edited by BenjaminL; 02/16/18 02:55 PM.
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Joined: Feb 2014
Posts: 336
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The Northshore example is interesting. I think the real benefit in Northshore is that they're now screening absolutely every kid--NOT waiting for parents to refer. I think the Naglieri is being used only as the first step in screening, hence the low cut-off, which is just the cut-off to move kids forward to the next step in testing. I don't think it's too surprising that they found 500 more kids to refer for more testing when using a decent screener on everyone. Previous research has at least hinted at the unreliability of referral systems.
I'm in the next district north of Northshore and our district still requires referrals and does Satruday cattle-call testing and a whole lot of other nonsense. There were 7 pages to be filled out to test and my 3rd grader had to hand write a 1-page essay about why he wanted to be in the gifted program, as if he would have any solid idea. The district supposedly now has a new K-3 program. I can only hope the kindergarteners are exempt from the essay portion.
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