why are minority children placed in special education?

Answer 1

The same reason majority children are placed in special education. They received a psychoeducational evaluation and were found to meet the criteria for a special education placement. The question you really want to ask is 'are more minority children referred for special education services and if so, why?' Just because a child is referred doesn't mean they will qualify.

For the record, public schools are under scrutiny from the government to be sure different groups of minorities aren't placed in special education at a higher rate than any other group. One of the interesting things is that a lot of schools get dinged not because of minority representation, but because there are often more males identified than females.

Answer 2

Minority children are not placed in special ed. Special ed is for children with special needs. Kids that dont speak the language are usually placed in a class called ESL english as a second language.

Answer 3

Some minority children, just like...what, majority? children have special needs and need to be in classes that support them.

If you mean children of Spanish-speaking backgrounds, sometimes school administrators only recognize a language delay in English, not realizing that the language spoken at home is Spanish, and they put the child in learning support classes. In these cases though, someone like me, a speech pathologist, usually gets the child for a session and has them put in a regular class.

Also, the economic status of minority families in the US is considerably lower than the rest, and believe it or not, this can affect language development. For example, the average child in a professional family hears about 48 million words by the age of four. The average child in a working family that recieves welfare has only heard about 12 million words by the age of four.

Answer 4

I'll assume you mean special classes to learn English?

Some schools do this, other schools practice English immersion where only English is spoken to the child.

Special education classes for kids with learning disabilities are incredibly expensive and even the kids that need those resources have to wait on a list. No school district is going to waste those resources and teachers on non-needy children.

Answer 5

Minority students are 5 times as likely to be in special ed. I think much of it has to do with the correlation between poverty in urban areas and minority families living there. They are not able to avail themselves of the programs to help prepare their children for school. The children are not necessarily developmentally delayed - they simply lack some of the exposure to an academic setting and are erroneously classified.

Answer 6

Why would you be so ignorant to say that. Not all minority children are in special education and not all children in special ed are minotiry. Where are you?

Answer 7

I feel bad that you think this way. Special education is for students with disabilities whether they are a minority or not. Special education is there to help students no matter what the color of their skin is.

Answer 8

I work in a disability services office at a college and I cannot tell you how many times an instructor has brought a student to my office because s/he "has a disability" when in reality it was just a lack of communication because English was not the student's first language.

From what I have seen, it has to do with ignorance on the part of the person doing the referring. I usually end up telling the instructor that not being fluent in English is not a disability and referring him/her to the ESL department.

Answer 9

I don't understand the question, what kind of minority you talk about? maybe they don't talk the language or doesn't have skills, so they have special needs, but not necessary special education or special schools.

Answer 10

They are not placed in special ed.
Students with disabilities may choose to attend special ed settings if mainstream schools are unable to meet their needs. There are many pros and cons linked to segregate institutional settings ...most literature, however, states that mainstreaming should always be considered to be the first option and/or main goal.