Special education overrepresentation often mirrors overrepresentation in many undesirable categories "including dropping out, low track placements, suspension, and involvement with juvenile justice and underrepresentation in desirable categories such as gifted and talented. Because special education inequalities are often tied to general education issues, remedies should address shortcomings in both special and general education. There are patterns of overrepresentation of minority children by disability category and whether, once identified, they experience relatively less access to the general education classroom than similarity situated white children. The evidence suggests that black overrepresentation is substantial in state after state. The Studies reveal wide differences in disability identification between blacks and Hispanics and between black boys and black girls that cannot be explained in terms of social background and measurable ability.
Racial Disparities foe Special Education.
Both Statistical and qualitative analyses suggest that these racial, ethnic, and gender differences are due to many complex and interacting factors, including unconscious radial bias on the part of school authorities, large resource inequalities that run along lines of race and class, unjustifiable reliance on IQ and evaluation tools, educators' inappropriate responses to the pressures of high stakes testing and power differentials between minority parents and school officials.
Overidentification.
On October 4, 2001,the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce, convene hearing about the overidentification of minority students in special education. In testimony by representative Chaka Fattah concluded with the following story of Billy Hawkins; .
For fifteen years of his life, Billy Hawkins was labeled by his teachers as-educable mentally retarded.