STATISTICS OF THE CONTINUING DISPROPORTIONATE MINORITY ENROLLMENT INTO SPECIAL EDUCATION

Minority children, especially African American children, continue to be enrolled in large numbers into special education relative to children of other races. The pattern of enrollment is typical of the early years of special education in spite of Congressional and juridical man-dates to address systemic biases in our public schools. This study attempts to evaluate the statistics of the continuing disproportionate enrollments of African American children into special education in order to shed some insight about possible normative directions for resolv-ing the crisis. ensus projections of public school enrollments show that by the year 2000 minority students ’ enrollment in the United States should range nationally between 40 % and 60 % in general or regular education. In both California and New York States, the enrollment projections were to be between 57 % and 60%. By contrast, the projected minority population in the nation was to be about 33 % by 2000 (Education Week, 1986). In 1980, minority children accounted for 27 % of aggregate public school enrollment nationally, an increase of 6 % over the preceding decade. (Education Week, 1986). Since the 1980s, the threshold necessary for racial replenishment in terms of comparative fertility sta-tistics has been at 2.1 per lifetime. They are at 1.7 for Caucasian women, from a high of 3.7 in 1957; 1.5 for Jewish women; 2.4 for African American women; 2.9 for Latino women (particularly for Mexican American women); and 3.4 for Immigrant women from the devel-oping work (Education Week, 1986). The comparative fertility statistics show increasing growths for minority children in our public school system nationally in general education. The growth should, however, have spill-over effects into special education particularly from poor minority families. C NATIONAL FORUM OF SPECIAL EDUCATION JOURNA