Exclusionary Practices

In the article, Hit Twice as Hard: Children with Disabilities Face Onslaught of Challenges, the authors, Daja E. Henry and Kimberly Rapanut (Aug 2020) outline present-day trials of youth with disabilities.

The authors cite Steven Nelson a professor of educational leadership at the University of Memphis, who describes three ways youth with disabilities are excluded from public schools. Dr. Nelson refers to these exclusionary practices as "pushout, shutout, and snatchout."

Pushout

Students with disabilities can not thrive in a one-size-fits-all learning environment; they require and are entitled to individualized education supports.

It is reported that students of color who live with disabilities are often not referred to the special education services they need.

Moreover, students who live with disabilities like oppositional defiant disorder--who do not receive individualized services--are more likely than their non-disabled peers to find themselves in detention or suspended. According to the U.S. Department of Education data from the 2015-16 school year, youth with disabilities were suspended twice as often as students without disabilities.

Shutout

In some areas of the country, students with disabilities are being overtly excluded from education.

In New Orleans, the public school system was sued by the Poverty Law Center in 2010 on behalf of 4,500 students they claim were "unlawfully excluded from educational programs." Some schools in the system were refusing admission with the excuse that they "didn't serve those types of students."

In Texas, the percentage of students receiving special education services was capped at 8.5 percent of their enrollment. The national average of students receiving special education is 14 percent.

Snatchout

This exclusionary practice refers to the use of physical restraints to mishandle youth experiencing mental health crises or exhibiting behavioral issues associated with a disability. These practices, it is said, create a punitive learning environment. Carolyn Fink, a University of Maryland professor whose work focuses on special and correctional education, posits that officials lack information about student histories and how to handle these disability-related issues properly. She says, "It's undeniable that the criminalization of misbehavior is a factor in juvenile justice." She adds, "When you militarize it, it escalates."