Racial Inequality In Special Education

Morgan Freeman once said, “Attacking people with disabilities is the lowest display of power I can think of”. According to the World Report on Disability , there is about 1 billion disabled people, 1 in 10 being children. Educational injustice has been one of the many attackers of children with disabilities. With lack of instructors and admissions, it makes it very difficult for a child with disabilities to reach the same educational and social level as someone in general education. When we focus on disabilities, we normally think of someone with a moderate to severe mental illness, but that is not just it. Someone with a physical injury, such as being in a wheelchair or having vision problems, is considered to be disabled. Children with disabilities …show more content…
Data shows that minority children with disabilities often experience a low-quality curriculum, inadequate services and unnecessary isolation from their nondisabled peers. Daniel J. Losen observed that racial, ethnic and gender gaps are a result of the many complex factors within educational injustice. Some of these factors were due to unconscious racial bias expressed on the behalf of school authorities, resource inequalities, an unjustified reliance on evaluation tools and a student’s IQ and the power differences between minority parents and school officials. The education department has noticed that minority students, some as young as four years old, face unequal treatment from their school staff and administrators. Alongside this, analysts have found that many minority students are more likely to be taught by a first year instructor, compared to someone with experience. Meaning that more minority children with disabilities are treated as test experiments to see if a teacher is qualified or not, not taking into account the negative impact that it may hold over the student. Studies show that African American children are identified as mentally retarded or emotionally disturbed 1.5 times to 4 times the rate compared to a white student. Also, emotionally disturbed black children receive less counseling hours and related services compared to disabled white children. With the …show more content…
They state that the children are being guaranteed their right to a free and appropriate public education, which gives them a higher chance of getting into secondary school and college. Although this may be true, we must pay attention to the difference between equality and equity. Equality is occurring by most , disabled and non-disabled, children getting the opportunity to receive a public education. The trouble with this is that not every child with a disability is getting this opportunity. This can be due to the school not having the resources fit for the child or it could be a socioeconomic factor. Instead schools, legislators and enforcement agents should focus on the ways they can provide equity. When forming policies or rules, students with needs aren’t normally prioritized. Special education should be considered as part of the whole education system, not just a side group. Most minority students with disabilities are more likely to be removed from their general educational environment and placed in a more restricted one. With the thought that they’ll learn at an easier pace, studies show that students with special needs actually benefit the most when they’re being taught in a less restricted environment. By having more trained teachers and professionals, you can have students with special needs in general education classes, just receiving extra help