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Category: 
All Content > Diversity, Equity and Inclusion > Mid Atlantic

Title of entry: 
Confusing and complex: A deep dive into a narrow provision that aims to reduce racial disparities in special education

Issue or Publication date:
8/1/23

Publication name: 
K-12 Dive

Publishing/parent company: 
Industry Dive

View Website home page:
https://www.k12dive.com/

Description of the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:

K-12 Dive provides in-depth journalism and insight into the most impactful news and trends shaping K-12 education.

For decades, a federal rule aimed to reduce racial disparities for students with disabilities has befuddled states and school districts.

K-12 Dive Senior Reporter Kara Arundel’s special education sources expressed frustration, despair and even ambivalence over the rule. Yet, most everyone supports the rule's intent to eliminate the misidentification of students with disabilities and disproportionate discipline practices.

Arundel spent eight months researching the root of the problem — and uncovered practices that actually reduced racial inequities for students with disabilities. Using her institutional knowledge of these complex federal rules, she set out to expose where the confusion and inconsistency lay, as well as to highlight school systems making an effort to improve. The data that identifies which districts are significantly disproportionate are not easy to find, and districts — and states — often don't want to publicize that their special education programs have racial disparities.

Through dogged research, Arundel discovered a sharp rise in the number of school districts identified as significantly disproportionate. She then combed through federal data to find those noncompliant districts and delved into one district's data to understand why Black students with intellectual disabilities were overrepresented. In total, she reached out to nearly 20 districts, state and advocacy organizations for interviews and information.

Industry Dive Visuals Editor Shaun Lucas provided image research and visual design, and News Graphics Developer Julia Himmel examined hard-to-navigate data to pinpoint states with the highest portion of districts identified as significantly disproportionate — and visualized this in clear, digestible ways.

The story was widely shared among education administrators and disability rights advocates. Feedback included this from a Stanford University education professor: "I appreciate the clarity of the analysis and the attention to nuance in representing a very complex problem."

And after publication, several states updated their guidance, data and resources about significant disproportionality in special education.

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https://www.k12dive.com/news/equity-in-idea-finding-solutions-racial-disproportionality-special-ed/688717/