Annotated Bibliography

This week while writing my annotated bibliography I found a few new resources that explored disproportionality in greater depth. One article, written by Dr. Gentry, a professor of special education, explores in depth solutions to disproportionality and helpful recommendations for the entirety of special education. The article also addresses overrepresentation and underrepresentation, and how each scenario can negatively impact students, explores the bias of misdiagnosis in detail and offers solutions to bring about much needed change.

The second article is a research study that focuses on the over representation of minorities from across the United States and explores reasons why overrepresentation occurs, what mandates have been implemented to prevent it and whether those mandates made any true change. Although this study is based upon surveys taken from 2004 to 2008, this study introduces evidence that may show that the mandates in place to protect from disproportionality are not effective. The article describes the factors that contribute to disproportionality, legislative initiatives to prevent or reduce disproportionality, the current study, which was based on the US Census Bureau, and the findings of the study.

I found each article on Ebscohost, and I believe that even though the study is dated from information from 2008, the mandates that have been put into place are not effective and need revision. That is why I believe this research is so important to educators. This is a problem that is affecting students for their entire lives because they are misdiagnosed. We need to recognize the difference between learning disabilities and other factors that may contribute to learning, but have nothing to do with a student’s intelligence.