NIUSI

part of the Education Reform Networks

On the Nexus of Race, Disability, and Overrepresentation: What Do We Know? Where Do We Go?

Link: http://www.urbanschools.org/pdf/race.pdf?v_document_name=Nexus%20of%20Race

This OnPoint was developed by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It is about minority overrepresentation in U.S. special education programs. America's schools are more culturally diverse and complex than at any time in the nation's history. The schools continue to have problems with overrepresentation as long as they develop educational structures, systems, routines, and pedagogies without understanding more about how the belief systems, biases, prejudices, and socioeconomic inequities that have existed for centuries in the American society are played out and perpetuated in our nation's schools. They must change the way they think about ability, competence, and success and schools to redefine support so that the need to "sort" children is reduced. Schools must not require students to adapt to the prevalent teaching practices, instructional materials, and assessment instruments that are used in schools and which often lead to the determination encourage that they are deficient in their ability to learn.
Download the document here

• Network/channel: NIUSI: Families & Communities: Culture
• Network/channel: NIUSI: Professional Effort: Group Practice & Professional Development
• Network/channel: NIUSI: School Organizational Effort: Culture of Change and Improvement

More like this one