Disproportionality/Over-Under Representation

Supporting Our Youngest Learners: What We Know About Equity in Early Intervention

Early intervention is the key to setting very young children with delays and disabilities on a path to long-term success. Yet children of color face barriers to accessing these services.

There are several strategies states can use to address systemic racial inequities in the health and education systems in which early intervention services take place. In this 16-page report, The Education Trust identifies the strengths of state approaches and opportunities for increasing equity in providing early intervention services. There’s also a 5-page Executive Summary available.

Find out more about and access the report and Executive Summary.

Glossary | Racial Equity Tools

This glossary comes from Racial Equity Tools, a website designed to support individuals and groups working to achieve racial equity. Within the glossary you’ll find the meaning of a wide array of oft-used terms such as: ally, anti-racist ideas, collusion, critical race theory, privilege, and racist policies. The glossary is easy to use with its list of terms, each of which can be selected and expanded to show its meaning and the references on the subject. While the definitions are written at an academic level of readability, this glossary is still very useful for gaining insight into the very important issue of racial equity. Learn more here, including where to find the glossary and a PDF of the glossary online.

The New Reading Rainbow: Great Books About Race, Diversity, and Inclusion

For young kids, books are an experience, a cooperative reading lessons with pointing, musing, and discussions about the content built into the comfort of bonding. While there are many excellent book lists for young readers that challenge representation and celebrate diversity, this list includes reading recommendations derived from a variety of organizations and experts leading the charge. It was created with the idea in mind that parents would be reading these books with their kids and, when questions arise, breaking down the content in a way that their child can understand. The reading list is also part of the series From The Start: A Parent’s Guide to Talking About Racial Bias, a rich source of guidance into the challenging task of talking about race. Connect with both of these resources here.

Disproportionality in Special Education | IDEA Part B | Module 5

A training module series of the Center for Parent Information and Resources November 2020   IDEA 2004 takes a stand against significant disproportionality of students in particular racial or ethnic groups in special education. This training module explains what disproportionality is, which students are most often affected, and the consequences disproportionality can and does have, […]

A Guide to Equity in Remote Learning

(2020) | Useful to educators, Parent Centers, and families of children with disabilities concerned with equity in education, especially in African American communities   This guide to equity in remote learning emerges from the ongoing webinar series Advancing Equity in an Era of Crisis, a collaborative effort of several professional organizations in California (e.g., California […]

Renegotiating School-Police Partnerships

(2020, June) | Useful to Parent Centers in working with schools using School Resource Officers (SROs) National conversations about police brutality have spurred school districts nationwide to reconsider their relationships with local law enforcement agencies. In the 2017–2018 school year, 45% of all public schools reported having one or more full- or part-time school resource […]

Racial Equity Resource Guide

In 2010, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation launched America Healing, an effort to put racial and structural inequalities behind us, by first putting it squarely in front of us. America Healing is designed to raise awareness of unconscious biases and inequities to help communities heal. In support of America Healing, the Kellogg Foundation created this comprehensive and interactive racial equity resource guide that includes practical resources aimed at helping organizations and individuals working to achieve racial healing and equity in their communities. There’s a video to introduce you to the search functionality that allows you to build your own resource guide suited to your needs or those of your organization or community.

For more info about the guide, its search functionalities, and the “how-to” video that will get you started, come here.

Is There Racial Inequality at Your School?

Based on civil rights data released by the U.S. Department of Education, ProPublica has built an interactive database to examine racial disparities in educational opportunities and school discipline. Using the database, you can look up more than 96,000 individual public and charter schools and 17,000 districts to see how they compare with their counterparts.

Read more about (and access) the database as well as get tips for searching for and connecting with school-specific information and district-wide profiles.

Final Rule: Delay of Compliance Dates for Disproportionality

On July 3, 2018, the U.S. Department of Education issued a final rule that will delay by two years the date for States to comply with the “Equity in IDEA” or “significant disproportionality” regulations. Set to go into effect on July 1, 2018, implementation of those rules are now delayed until July 1, 2020. In the same final rule, the Department also postponed the date for including children ages 3 through 5 in the analysis of significant disproportionality, with respect to the identification of children as children with disabilities and as children with a particular impairment. The initial implementation deadline was July 1, 2020; the deadline is now two years later: July 1, 2022.

Access the final rule delaying compliance dates, read the analysis of comments and changes, and access key background information.

Disabling Punishment: The Need for Remedies to the Disparate Loss of Instruction Experienced by Black Students with Disabilities

This report provides the first state-by-state estimate of how much instructional time is lost for students with disabilities due to disciplinary actions such as school suspension. The study documents the disparities between black and white students with disabilities.

The difference in days of lost instruction means there are huge inequities in the opportunity to learn. The study was prompted the U.S. Department of Education’s decision in February 2018 to seek comments on its intention to delay implementation of the IDEA regulations that pertain to racial disproportionality in special education, which include disciplinary disparities. The report on the findings of the study includes recommendations. An executive summary is also available.

Read more about, and access, the report as well as the executive summary.