The Under-representation of Children of Colour Within Special Education

According to George Farkas and Paul Morgan, two researchers, researched the disproportion between of special needs children between children of colour and white children. There findings were outlandishly misapplied in their claims that children of colour, especially black children, were actually under-represented within special education and that the numbers of diagnosed black children needed to go up. Their argument included that poverty was to blame, and that black children were more exposed to lead poisoning which would mess with their cognitive abilities, that they had a lower birth weight than most other children out of their race, and had a lack of resources medically which would give them poorer health in their childhood (Farkas, Morgan, 2015). This caused an uproar within black communities, civil rights lawyers, and even the federal government. Shortly after 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 colour are incapable of achieving academically and that children who had poor physical health automatically made justified being diagnosed with a disability. Furthermore, children of colour in special education receiving representation and being misdiagnosed are two separate issues that overlap, but do not correlate nor equal the same thing. People of colour are generally under-represented but that is not the issue at hand.

Children of colour are being misdiagnosed with disabilities at an alarming rate in comparison to children who are white and that make up over 53% of the American population. According to, children of colour need to be paid attention to much closer. Children of colour should be paired with teachers that are non-white and even from the same culture/racial background if possible. Children of colour actually learn more from teachers of colours as opposed to white teachers, and this logic goes the same for when being evaluated for a disability. The reason behind this is blatantly shared experience and understanding. According to the Huffington’s post What I Learned Teaching Black Students, a new and young female teacher who is white, went into the inner-city schools of Atlanta with the idea of ‘saving’ ‘these’ children white a white saviour complex (Norman, 2015). With that being a separate topic, because of her ignorance and lack of knowledge of the culture and community of black people, she would brush away behaviours and words mentioned within the classroom. She believed hair was just hair and had no significance in her classroom full of black children that are inherently hated by the world from everything starting from their skin tone to their hair texture, colour, and length. From not having theses shared experiences in racism and colourism, she lacked the ability to address issues that severely impacted the learning and security of her students. Regardless of her new learning through trial and error, her students will remember forever as will the children that she has taught before unlearning parts of her ignorance. In this one of many white educators and child-care professionals across the nation, this has been one small experience that was detrimental in the learning and acceptance of children of colour within education. Furthermore, because of the hate and oppression of black people who speak Ebonics/AAVE and children with accents, children are perceived as less capable and intelligent than their peers when all it has to do with is a vernacular and language barrier that show absolutely no link to a diagnosis in special education. Accents, culture, and vernaculars are few of many aspects that white teachers have experience or understanding in, resulting to skewed views of children of colour and children who are learning English as a second language. As a result, the best option would be to hire more teachers who is a person of colour, who have learned English as a second language, and even possibly white teachers who have extensive and thorough experiences with diverse people of all backgrounds and cultures.