edited by Daniel J. Losen and Gary Orfield
2002
As the debate heats up over the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the issue of black children being overindentified as "children with special needs" is receiving increased attention. According to Losen and Orfield, "black students are nearly three times as likely as white students to be labeled mentally retarded." It is widely known that public schools place a disproportionate number of minority students into special education programs and classes, and for far too many of these youngsters, special ed turns out to be a treadmill from which it is almost impossible to disembark. The system helps to block these children from the mainstream of American society. What to do? The authors of this book (from Harvard's Civil Rights Project) offer a number of solutions, some a lot more appealing than others:
- Improving the quality of education children receive in the earliest grades so they are not burdened with deficits that lead to the "special ed" label in the first place.
- Supporting the No Child Left Behind Act's demand to end the "soft bigotry of low expectations" by insisting that all children achieve to a high standard.
- Using the courts to ensure that children are educated in the least restrictive environment as required by law.
- Strengthening Washington's hand in enforcing IDEA and monitoring state compliance.
- A moratorium on the use of high stakes tests for determining who receives a high school diploma and advances to the next grade until all children are provided with adequate opportunities to master the curriculum.
- Boosting special education funding by $2.5 billion each year until 2007, at which time Congress will meet its 40 percent commitment.
And on and on. This book lays out an agenda for special education reform from the perspective of those wanting to use schools to social engineer their vision of racial equality. To achieve this goal, they believe a big, intrusive government is a reasonable price to pay. To check out the press release for the book and learn how to obtain it, go to http://www.law.harvard.edu/civilrights/press_releases/special_ed.html.
