Search Rethinking Schools Help Home Archives Volume 17 No. 3- Spring 2003 'A Ghetto Within a Ghetto' 'A Ghetto Within a Ghetto' -photo: Jean-Claude Lejeune African-American students are over-represented in special education programs. Spring 2003 By Joel McNally The disproportionate placement of African-American males into special education classes has created a "a ghetto within a ghetto," says Gary Orfield, co-director of Harvard University's Civil Rights Project. Orfield says that this racial disparity makes it less likely that black students receive high school diplomas, less likely they will be employed after leaving school, and more likely they will end up in the criminal justice system. "This is segregation within segregation," Orfield said. "For a lot of these kids, this is a direct path to jail. It becomes an irreversible punishment in these kids' lives. This is taking a bad problem and putting it inside another even worse problem. It's just unconscionable." Orfield is co-editor with Daniel Losen of the newly published Racial Inequity in Special Education | |
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