A New Problem to Special Education

This blog post is a review of the journal article "English-Learners Often Misidentified for Special Ed." as published by Editorial Projects in Education in, Education Week, Aug 2012, Vol. 32, Issue 2, pg. 12.

Summary:

I think it is important to first mention how this article starts off and realize that this is something that special education teachers experience constantly. The article begins with a teacher, in a San Diego public school, that received six students who were referred to special education. What makes those six students stand out… all of them were English Language Learners! What interests me further, is not one of those students were placed in special education upon assessment. The article continues to address how these students probably would have been placed in special education if this same situation occurred a few years prior. The schools in San Diego district have gone through an era of receiving a disproportionate amount of referrals of ELL students for special education. What did San Diego do? According to the article, they created a step by step process to ensure every possibility, including language, has been evaluated before their eligibility is determined.

"Special education had become the default intervention," said Sonia Picos, a program manager in the district's special education department. "Special education was seen as the place with the answers, without taking into consideration what the long-term implications were going to be for the students." (p. 1) The article continues with a discussion on the problem of identifying ELL students as a double sided problem. ELLs have been overrepresented in special education, when there is no process on deciphering their abilities. On the other hand, when that problem is considered of being overrepresented, there is a challenge of not providing services for ELL students who need them.

One important take away from the article discusses that national research for misidentified ELLs happened within the last decade. One common factor that was seen across the board is if a district had a small population of ELLs, there was a theme of over-identification present, and districts with a high population of ELLs were under-identified. This is important because "by 2030, English-learners will comprise an estimated 40 percent of the American student population" (p. 12).

The article discusses the root of the problem: do students have a disability or language that is impeding progress? One of the many challenges professionals face are the assessments and evaluation tools available for determining eligibility. The biggest factor, interestingly enough, is NOT that it is in English, because giving them the assessment in Spanish is just as challenging. According to Lesli A Maxwell and Nin Shah, these assessments are catered to students who speak a single language.


How did San Diego’s school district work on the correct identification of ELL students?

1. Have a process catered to English Language Learners. The article discusses the importance of how many factors are added for being a second language learners and evaluators need to slow down the process.

2. Give their district staff members a “pre-referral” process before the jump to special education. This process includes supporting general education teachers with a list of interventions that support ELL students in their Tier 1 instruction.

3. Examine “extrinsic factors” in the student's life. These factors include a look into parental involvement, attendance issues, nutrition, and frequently moving.


Reflection:

It is so frustrating to get referrals for so many students who are ELLs. However, I can’t change the referrals I get, I can only be educated enough to understand where the referral may be stemming from and what questions I need to ask in order to determine if a student is being identified appropriately. My passion for identifying students appropriately, especially ELLs, was inspired by an ESL teacher. This teacher cared so much about her students not receiving the support her students needed to be successful in their general education classroom. This article helped me understand what questions I need to ask in order to help support correctly identifying students.

From this article I gained a lot of insight on thinking about assessments being catered to students who speak one language. If students are learning one language in a social environment and learning academic language at school in another language, there is going to be a struggle in assessing students in only one language. Does there need to be specific assessments for bilingual students? Are they available? Will they bring together the social and academic language together?

Lastly, I want to dive deeper into districts and locations that have dealt with the low population of ELL students and how did they combat their over-representation in special education.