Topic > The underrepresentation of children of color in special education

According to George Farkas and Paul Morgan, two researchers, they studied the disproportion between children with special needs between children of color and white children. Those findings were applied absurdly as they claimed that children of color, particularly Black children, were actually underrepresented in special education and that the number of diagnosed Black children needed to increase. Their argument included that poverty was to blame and that black children were more exposed to lead poisoning which would impair their cognitive abilities, that they had a lower birth weight than most other children outside their race and who had a lack of medical resources. which would give them worse health during their childhood (Farkas, Morgan, 2015). This caused an uproar within black communities, civil rights lawyers, and even the federal government. Shortly thereafter the New York Times wrote an article titled “Is Special Education Racist?” The Atlantic Times wrote an article stating exactly what was wrong with this research and why it was wrong. Farkas and Morgan made blanket statements that ignored the complexity of these issues, perpetuating the idea that children of color are incapable of achieving academically and that children who were in poor physical health automatically warranted a diagnosis of disability. Furthermore, children of color in special education receiving representation and being misdiagnosed are two separate issues that overlap, but are not related or amount to the same thing. People of color are generally underrepresented, but that's not the issue at hand. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Children of color are misdiagnosed with disabilities at an alarming rate compared to white children and make up more than 53% of the American population. Second, children of color need to pay attention much more closely. Children of color should be paired with teachers who are non-white and, if possible, also of the same cultural/racial background. Children of color actually learn more from teachers of color than white ones, and this logic applies the same when they are being evaluated for a disability. The reason for this is the clearly shared experience and understanding. According to the Huffington post What I Learned Teaching Black Students, a new, young, white female teacher went into Atlanta's inner-city schools with the idea of ​​"saving" "these" white children, a white savior complex (Norman , 2015). Since this is a separate topic, due to his ignorance and lack of knowledge of black culture and community, he would brush aside the behaviors and words mentioned in class. She believed that hair was just hair and had no meaning in her classroom full of black children who are inherently hated by the world from everything from skin tone to hair texture, color and length. Without these shared experiences of racism and colorism, she lacked the ability to address issues that severely impacted her students' learning and safety. Regardless of his new learning through trial and error, his students will forever remember as will the children he taught before unlearning parts of his ignorance. In one of the many white educators and child care professionals across the nation, this was a small experience that was harmful to.