This article focused on the evidence that minority students in New York
State were more likely to be placed in special education classes, than
White students were. I chose this article because I was hoping that it
would explain why this was occurring. Also, I have tutored several
special needs students, and was curious to the reasons surrounding such
a high number of minority students being placed in special education
classes.

Five questions that came about after reading this article were:

1. Were the students that had been placed in special classes, in fact
deserving of the placement? Were there a high number of minority
students in these classrooms because they actually had learning
problems, or is there a deeper problem surrounding the way minority
students are being taught.

2. I was also curious as to what the national average of minorities in
special education was? Was is similar or different to the average of New
York schools?

3. How many of these students, in fact had no learning disability, but
in fact were just students with behavior problems? I think often, the
easiest way to deal with a student that is difficult in the classroom is
to label him as learning disabled. This in turn creates a log jam in the
special education classes, making the teacher less able to help those
students who really are learning disabled.

4. The article comments that on the average, special needs students
spend less than 40 percent of their day in the general ed classes. My
question then is what are those students doing with the rest of that
sixty percent. Already  behind in their schooling, the last thing they
need is to fall further behind in the curriculum.

5. Why are the New York school systems routinely putting minority
students in special education classes, while working hard to keep White
students in the regular classes? How can the school board, especially
with this new evidence, keep allowing school districts to in a sense
give up on troubled minority students?

By Jayson Wullbrandt