Published On: July 7th, 2015|

The Huffington Post – Kevin Welner

“Science is additive. Even the most startling new discoveries are built upon years of research findings reported by others. Sir Isaac Newton said he saw further because he stood on the shoulders of giants. So researchers are rightly wary when one of their own claims to have overturned years of established scientific findings in a single paper. Such claims tend to crumble under scrutiny. That is what happened this past week in a paper published by Paul Morgan and his colleagues in the journal Educational Researcher. The over-representation in special education of students of color, particularly Black students, has been studied extensively for over 40 years. This over-representation has been documented in countless research studies by individual researchers, in comprehensive collections of studies, and even by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences. So it created sharp ripples in the special education community last week, when Morgan and his colleagues reported almost completely contradictory findings, in both the journal article and in an op-ed in The New York Times, titled, “Is Special Education Racist?” The commentary claims that minority students are in fact under-represented in special education. If these findings were to hold up, it would have serious practical consequences–it would mean that almost 20 years of federal policy, based on the evidence of over-representation of students of color, was just plain wrong.”(more)