View Content #748
| Contentid | 748 |
|---|---|
| Content Type | 1 |
| Title | When Should Bilingual Students Be in Special Education? |
| Body | Distinguishing English Language Learners from Special Education Students Vol. 61 (2), pp. 66-71 Janette K. Klingner and Alfredo J. Artiles state in their article "When Should Bilingual Students Be in Special Education?" in the October 2003 issue of Educational Leadership that most of the overrepresentation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education comes from the "judgmental" categories of special education, in other words, those categories diagnosed by school personnel: mental retardation, learning disabilities, and emotional disturbance. In the categories considered nonjudgmental, such as orthopedic, auditory, or visual impairment, African Americans and Hispanics are not overrepresented. Although data is usually not collected concerning the incidence of English learners in special education, according to the authors, recent evidence from California suggests that this population may be "heavily overrepresented." The authors then discuss a variety of factors happening in schools that can lead to this overrepresentation. One example they give is that researchers have found that only a minority of school psychologists, when conducting psychoeducational assessments of English learners, asked about the students' home language and/or "attempted to determine whether a learning problem occurred in both English and the students' home language." The authors recommend a three-pronged approach to solving this problem. First, school personnel should receive professional development that thoroughly explains the exclusionary clause in the IDEA legislation, the factors that establish whether a student has had an adequate opportunity to learn, "and how to implement prereferral strategies." Second, an English-language-acquisition professional should attend IEP meetings to assist in the decision-making process. Third, classroom context should be considered with classroom observations made by a neutral party and not the teacher. The authors assert that another problem facing culturally and linguistically diverse students is testing, explaining that it is "fraught with misunderstandings and flawed practices." Their solutions are: (1) cease using discrepancy formulas and IQ tests to evaluate eligibility for special education services and use a "response to intervention model" instead; and (2) schools should use alternatives assessments that are more culturally sensitive, such as portfolios. In the end, the authors state that the field still needs to find a reliable means of distinguishing between students with disabilities and English-language learners and develop an assessment of students' "true learning potential rather than knowledge acquired through previous home and school experiences." In addition, special education professionals need to cease viewing culturally and linguistically diverse students from a deficit perspective. To download the article (for a small fee), visit: http://www.ascd.org/publications/ed_lead/200310/abstracts.html |
| Source | Janette K. Klingner and Alfredo J. Artiles |
| Inputdate | 2003-10-30 21:44:00 |
| Lastmodifieddate | 2003-10-30 21:44:00 |
| Expdate | Not set |
| Publishdate | Not set |
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| Active | 1 |
| Emailed | 1 |
| Isarchived | 1 |
