Summer 1999

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Special Education and Native Americans

by Bonnie Bostrom

This is a response to an article published in Volume 2, Issue 2 of the Quinnehtukqut Legal News.  That article in turn was a response to an article by Bonnie Bostrom published in Volume 2, Issue 1.   Bonnie is the Chief of Education for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.

Special Education issues are very important to Native Americans. It is good that different opinions are expressed in print so that we have the issues out in the open. I want to thank the writer, Anne Louise Blanchard, Esq., who responded to my article, for highlighting some points that may even need further clarification.

Ms. Blanchard was correct to infer that I feel that a special education referral should only happen as a last resort. I agree with Ms. Blanchard when she states that "... a school needs to explore and provide regular education intervention services to children who may need extra help." Ms. Blanchard then refers to a "special education" planning and placement team. According to Roger Frant, an Educational Consultant with the Special Education Division of the State Department of Education for Connecticut, the team is simply a Planning and Placement Team. To call the Team a "special education" team is somewhat misleading.

The task of the Planning and Placement Team is to find out what interventions have been tried and what options may be available. One option may be referral for an assessment. It sounds as though Ms. Blanchard believes that a child could be referred to special education for something such as attendance problems. If that were the case, it may explain why 39% of all the Native Americans attending one school district were in special education. The norm is about 12% of ANY population. It has been my experience that far too many Native American children are being mislabeled and placed into special education as a first resort. I also believe that very few truly disabled children do not get identified.

I would also like to point out that many states use different criteria to decide whether a child should be diagnosed as learning disabled. In my article I gave some figures which are used by states to decide whether a child has learning disabilities. Ms. Blanchard criticized those figures, saying that they were not the figures used in Connecticut. Those figures are used by some states, such as New Mexico. An important aspect of using these kinds of figures in making a diagnosis of a learning disability is that a child may be considered learning disabled in one state, but not in another.

To be sure, it is important to understand all these issues. The point I want to stress is that Special Education should be the last resort. All other resources and interventions should be exhausted first. Far too many Native American students are placed in Special Education. Parents deserve to understand this process and should remember that even well-intentioned people make mistakes. Unfortunately, sometimes those mistakes make a great difference in the lives of children who are placed in Special Education inappropriately.

Again, it is through discussion and sharing ideas about such important issues that understanding is reached. I appreciate Ms. Blanchard's comments and her support for Native Americans in their attempts to give their children an education that is appropriate for them.