Delayed Special Education Placement for Learning Disabilities among Children of Immigrants

Jacob Hibel, Andrea D. Jasper

Social Forces, Volume 91, Number 2, December 2012, pp. 503-529 (Article)

Published by Oxford University Press

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/sof/summary/v091/91.2.hibel.html

Access provided by University of North Carolina @ Charlotte (10 Feb 2014 15:56 GMT)

Delayed Special Education Placement

503

Delayed Special Education Placement

Delayed Special Education Placement for Learning Disabilities among Children of Immigrants
Jacob Hibel, Purdue University Andrea D. Jasper, Georgia Southern University

rior theory and research suggest that children of immigrants would be at especially high risk for special education placement with learning disabilities. However, their longitudinal special education placement patterns have received scant attention. This study examines temporal patterns of special education placement among children of immigrants, focusing on the timing of special education placement for learning disabilities among rst- or second-generation children compared with their third-plus generation peers. Results provide evidence that children of immigrants face comparatively lower odds of receiving early special education intervention services, but demonstrate an increasing risk as the school years progress. This relationship is explained by children of immigrants frequent participation in English as a second language programs in the early grades. In spite of the fact that social stratication is a central area of sociological inquiry, sociologists have dedicated relatively little attention to the unequal opportunities available to individuals with disabilities for full participation in society and its major institutions (Wells, Sandefur and Hogan 2003). There is perhaps no setting in which disability-related stratication is more evident than in schools, where children with physical, cognitive or behavioral impairments are formally labeled as disabled and educated in special settings. The more than 6.6 million children receiving special education services in American schools represent a large and continually expanding segment of the school-age population (U.S. Department of Education 2010). Given the disadvantages faced by students with disabilities in terms of their academic (Morgan etal. 2010), labor market (Phelps and Hanley-Maxwell 1997) and life course outcomes (Wells etal. 2003; Janus 2009), this population is certainly deserving of increased research attention. In the present study, we focus on childrens placement in special education with a diagnosis of learning disability (LD), the most frequently identied

We wish to thank Katerina Bodovski, Kenneth F. Ferraro, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts.
The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. Social Forces 91(2) 503530, December 2012 doi: 10.1093/sf/sos092 Advance Access publication on 24 October 2012

504 Social Forces 91(2)

isability during the schooling years (Smith etal. 2008). Special education serd vices represent a potentially effective method for addressing the achievement decits experienced by students with LD. These customized instructional programs are designed to meet the needs of individual learners, and entail the use of a variety of services, teaching strategies and/or equipment to help students with disabilities reach their academic potential. The bulk of extant research on special education inequalities focuses on absolute placement rates (i.e., inequalities in the proportion of students from various backgrounds who are placed into special education services at or by a particular point in time). However, disparities in the timing of such placement may lead to inequalities in special educations efcacy to the extent that members of certain populations experience barriers to the receipt of early intervention services. As an integral component of special education, early intervention programs have the particularly strong potential to improve students learning trajectories and reduce their risk of LD-related difculties in later grades (Bruder 2010; Guralnick 2005; Lyon 1996; Reschly 2005; Slavin 1996). Early intervention programs focus on the critical period between kindergarten and grade three in which services show especially strong preventative or minimizing effects on students academic, behavioral and social difculties. Early LD identication allows educators to adapt instruction to childrens learning needs before their learning difculties grow stronger roots (Jenkins and OConnor 2002) and become more difcult to remediate. Thus, the earlier intervention begins, the better students outcomes tend to be (Guralnick 2005). For students with LD needs, therefore, early diagnosis and intervention are crucial components of a successful schooling experience (Ramey and Ramey 1998). Conversely, there may be substantial negative consequences of delaying special education service receipt for students with LD needs. Students with LD are less likely to benet academically or socioemotionally from interventions delivered beyond the optimal window during which skills are most efciently and completely acquired (Pool and Hourcade 2011). If an individual student with LD needs misses early intervention opportunities, research suggests that the student will be correspondingly less successful in subsequent schooling experiences. By extension, if a particular population of students with LD needs disproportionately misses out on early intervention opportunities, we might consider the trend a threat to educational equity. While research on early intervention clearly indicates that LD remediation during the rst years of schooling is especially effective, these benets apply only to students with actual LD needs. Inappropriate special education placement the special education placement of students who do not have disabilitiesis a major educational policy concern. The costs associated with inappropriate placement accrue to the education system as a whole (e.g., the federal government spends 90% more to educate a child in special education than in a mainstream setting [U.S. Department of Education 2002]) as well as to individuals for whom the stigma, reduced curricular content and lowered expectations associated with special education placement yield atter achievement trajecto ries and poorer socioemotional outcomes (Donovan and Cross 2002; Harry and

Delayed Special Education Placement

505

Klingner 2006). Given the importance of the rst years of schooling for continued academic success (Alexander and Entwisle 1988), we might expect the disadvantages associated with inappropriate special education placement to be exacerbated when such placement occurs during the early grades. Thus, educators are tasked with walking a delicate line: if schools are to provide students with equal educational opportunities, then those who have special learning needs must, according to federal law, be provided with access to effective special educational services. By the same token, erroneously identifying students with disabilities and inappropriately placing them into special education represents a different yet no less signicant example of equal opportunity denial (Losen and Oreld 2002).

Disproportionate Representation in Special Education

Research on learning disability identication and special education placement in U.S. schools indicates that childrens demographic characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender and social class affect their likelihood of being labeled as disabled and placed in special education. Findings from this disproportionate placement literature suggest that African Americans (e.g., Artiles and Trent 1994), males (e.g., Harry and Anderson 1994) and children from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds (e.g., Donovan and Cross 2002) face greater risk of disability diagnosis and special education placement than their peers. Immigrant generational status represents an additional dimension along which special education placement disparities may arise. In the wake of recent increases in migration, rst- and second-generation children currently represent nearly a quarter of the school-age population of the United States, making it increasingly important to track their experiences in American schools (Hernandez etal. 2009). Structural theories of educational stratication imply that children of immigrants would experience especially high risk for special education placement with LD. Immigrant families frequently face social and economic disadvantages upon arrival in the United States, including limited familiarity with English, a lack of community and school ties, lower levels of parental human capital and fewer nancial resources (Bean and Tienda 1987; Kao and Tienda 1995; Zhou 1997). Research has linked each of these background factors to lower educational performance among the children of immigrants, as well as to increased likelihood of special education placement in the general student population (Donovan and Cross 2002). Indeed, prior investigations have tended to focus on socioeconomic risk factors in efforts to explain racial/ethnic, social class and immigrant-native disparities in special education placement (e.g., Coutinho, Oswald and Best 2002; Donovan and Cross 2002). However, sociological conict and cultural capital theories also contribute to our understanding of how unequal rates of special education placement may arise. Conict-oriented social reproduction theories posit that systems of education are structured to reinforce and reward cultural characteristics of the dominant status group (e.g., Bourdieu and Passerson 1977; Bowles

506 Social Forces 91(2)

and Gintis 1976). In U.S. public schools, this takes the form of the curriculum and classroom environment normalizing white, middle-class forms of cultural capital. In line with this perspective, researchers frequently nd that teachers are more likely to regard minority students as poorly behaved or as possessing lower academic ability than non-Latino white students based in part upon minority students distinct cultural repertoires (Carter 2003; Farkas etal.1990; Oakes 2005). In light of research demonstrating the primacy of teachers subjective beliefs and perceptions in initiating the special education referral process (e.g., Klingner and Harry 2006) as well as the strong correlation between such referral and eventual special education placement (Artiles and Trent 1994), we might expect children of immigrant parents, particularly those with distinctly nonwhite American cultural capital, to face elevated risk of LD diagnosis and special education placement. Thus, theory and empirical evidence predict that children of immigrants will experience an especially high likelihood of special education placement with LD. However, the timing of identication for special education receipt may differ in important ways between students with foreign- and native-born parents as a result of schools institutional exigencies prioritizing English prociency over other educational needs. Because the great majority of contemporary immigrants originate in non-English-speaking countries, their children often arrive in U.S. schools with limited English prociency. Unfamiliarity with English can provide a substantial hurdle to students attending U.S. public schools, where a major emphasis is placed on learning English and, often, abandoning other languages (Portes and Rumbaut 2006). To the extent that U.S. public schools regard English prociency as a necessary condition for participation in the general curriculum, teachers and administrators may prioritize English as a second language (ESL) instruction over other supplementary education services, including special education (Limbos and Geva 2001). The institutional emphasis on early, rapid adoption of English-only communication might therefore lead children of immigrants to demonstrate especially low rates of special education placement during the early grades, when ESL instruction is most frequently administered. Because receipt of early intervention services is especially important for the long-term educational prospects of children diagnosed with LD (Bruder 2010), a pattern of systematically delayed special education receipt would represent an additional source of disadvantage for children of immigrants with special learning needs.

Language Minority Students in U.S. Schools

Approximately 26 percent of the school-age population of the United States spoke a language other than English at home in 2007, and this proportion is expected to grow in the coming years (Shin and Kiminski 2010). Thus, appropriately educating students with lower levels of English familiarity will be an increasingly important issue facing American public schools in the immediate future. The policy and research literatures employ a variety of terms to describe students who lack familiarity with the English language, including ESL, limited

Delayed Special Education Placement

507

English procient and English language learner. We use the term language minority to refer to students living in homes in which a language other than English is spoken. We adopt Artiles and colleagues (2005) denition of language minority, referring to students who were not born in the United States or whose native language is a language other than English or who come from an environment where a language other than English is dominant (Artiles etal. 2005:284). In order for a language minority student to receive ESL services, the school must determine that the student has difculty reading, writing and speaking the English language. Although policies for identication and reclassication of language minority students are state-level decisions, the federal No Child Left Behind Act (2001) required that school districts assess students with a nonEnglish rst language for English prociency and formally identify those with limited English prociency (Young and King 2008). Schools were required to provide these students with alternative services to develop English language facility until they were capable of meaningfully participating in the districts educational program (Ofce of Civil Rights 2005). States and school districts have exibility in the types of alternative services they can provide to meet the needs of language minority students, as no particular alternative service is specied by federal statute. For example, depending on the district and school they attend, language minority students in Indiana may be offered alternative services, including transitional bilingual education (i.e., students are taught using English and their native language; as English prociency increases, instruction in native language decreases), ESL (i.e., instruction in the use of English using little or no native language), sheltered English (i.e., instruction in content areas using little or no native language) or structured immersion (i.e., students receive all of their instruction in English) (Indiana Department of Education n.d.). These services begin as soon as a student is determined to be of language minority status. Students typically receive these services until their schools determine they are ready to exit by considering such factors as the students ability to keep up with their language majority peers in the regular education program, their ability to participate successfully without the use of adapted or simplied English materials and their ability to read, write, speak and comprehend English (Ofce of Civil Rights 2005). Recent studies have noted, however, that ESL entry and exit criteria are often problematically vague, and students are frequently retained in ESL programs beyond the point at which the programs cease to be benecial (Callahan, Wilkinson and Muller 2010; Ragan and Lesaux 2006).

The Complex Intersection of Immigrant Generational Status, Language Minority Status, ESL Programs and Special Education
Several researchers have identied unique difculties educators face in identifying LD among immigrant language minority students (e.g., Garcia and Ortiz 1988; McCardle, Mele-McCarthy and Leos 2005; Rueda and Windmuller 2006). The most prominent complicating factor is English language prociency,

508 Social Forces 91(2)

as school professionals often nd it difcult to determine whether students academic difculties stem from psychological learning difculties or limited familiarity with English (Guiberson 2009; Klingner and Harry 2006; McCardle etal. 2005; Samson and Lesaux 2009). There is a documented tendency among school professionals to delay referring language minority students for special education services until they are sufciently English procient, which typically requires 1-2 years of specialized instruction for the development of basic interpersonal communication skills (Garcia and Ortiz 1988; Geva, Yaghoub-Zadeh and Schuster 2000; Limbos and Geva, 2001; Samson and Lesaux 2009). This delay may result from teachers belief that their language minority students academic difculties are solely caused by an inability to prociently speak and comprehend English (Limbos and Geva 2001), a belief that ESL services are an equivalent substitute for special education (Guiberson 2009), or as a conscious compensatory response to criticisms that placement in special education is frequently based on students demographic characteristics rather than factors causally related to academic difculties (Geva etal. 2000). It is unarguably important for educators to guard against inappropriate special education placement, which has severe negative consequences for affected students (Donovan and Cross 2002; Garcia and Ortiz 1988). At the same time, it is also important to recognize that deliberately delaying language minority students disability assessment and intervention may have the unintended consequence of preventing immigrant students who have LD needs from accessing important early intervention services. In recent years, a small number of researchers have noted that language minority students appear to be underrepresented in special education in the earliest school years, yet by third (Samson and Lesaux 2009) or fth grade (Artiles etal. 2005), these students appear to be overrepresented in special education. These studies are purely descriptive in the sense that they identify but do not seek to explain the causes of this trend. Our study takes additional steps, explaining longitudinal variation in special education placement among children in immigrant and native families. In the analyses presented below, we examine three hypotheses: (1 children of immigrants demonstrate a distinctive temporal pattern of delayed special education placement with LD; (2 this pattern can be attributed to children of immigrants high frequency of language minority status; and (3 ESL service receipt in the early years accounts for rst- or second-generation and language minority childrens delayed special education placement with LD.

Data
The data analyzed in the present study are drawn from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). The ECLS-K focuses on childrens schooling experiences beginning in the fall of the kindergarten year and ending in the spring of eighth grade.1 The ECLS-K includes information from direct child assessments, interviews with

Delayed Special Education Placement

509

parents, questionnaires administered to children, parents, teachers and school principals and ofcial student records.

Measures
The dependent variable in this study is a binary indicator of special education service receipt for LD during the past school year. This information was collected from students school records by the ECLS-K team. We examine students risk of experiencing special education placement with LD across the kindergarten, rst, third, and fth grade years. While the ECLS-K continued following students through the eighth grade, we limit our analysis to the K-5 period because the mediating variable of interest, ESL participation, was not measured in the eighth grade wave. The key independent variables are as follows: immigrant generational status, indicated by parents nativity; language minority status, indicated by the language spoken in childrens homes; and childrens participation in ESL programs, as reported by their classroom teachers. Mothers and fathers were asked to report their country of birth as part of the questionnaire administered in the spring of rst grade. We use these items to classify children into either a combined rst- and second-generation category comprising children with at least one parent born outside the United States, or a third-plus generation category comprising children with no foreign-born parents. Mothers were asked in the fall of kindergarten whether any language other than English was spoken in the home. Consistent with prior research examining the ECLS-K (e.g., Kieffer 2008; Samson and Lesaux 2009) we use responses to this question to identify children who spoke a language other than English in the home as language minority students. No students were excluded from the ECLS-K or our analytic sample due to a lack of English prociency. We measured participation in ESL and related services as a time-varying, binary variable derived from teacher reports in kindergarten and in rst, third and fth grades. Students teachers reported whether the student participated in a Title 1 ESL/bilingual program, pull-out ESL program or in-class ESL program during the past school year.2 Students who participated in a Title 1 ESL/bilingual program and/or received instruction in a pull-out or in-class ESL program were coded as ESL participants for that particular year.3 In addition to the independent variables described above, we adjust for an array of student/family background and school composition measures identied by prior research as important predictors of LD diagnosis and special education placement. Low family socioeconomic status has been linked to increased odds of special education placement in prior work (e.g., Shifrer, Muller and Callahan 2011), and we therefore include the ECLS-Ks composite family SES measure. This scale incorporates measures of parents income, educational attainment, and occupational prestige. We standardize the SES variable ( x =0, s=1) to facilitate interpretation. A great deal of research attention has been devoted to patterns of disproportionate representation in special education along gender and racial /ethnic

510 Social Forces 91(2)

lines (e.g., Coutinho etal. 2002; Donovan and Cross 2002; Klingner and Harry 2006; Hosp and Reschly 2004; Losen and Oreld 2002). To account for possible relationships between students race/ethnicity and their longitudinal risk of special education placement, we include dummy variables representing parent reports of childrens Hispanic/Latino ethnicity and non-Latino black, non-Latinio white, Asian or other race (a category including American Indian/Alaska Natives, multiracial non-Latinos, Native Hawaiians, and other Pacic Islanders) in our statistical models. We control for gender by including a dummy variable coded 1 for females and 0 for males. We also include measures of students cognitive and behavioral school readiness as control variables. Recent research on inequalities in special education placement indicates that academic preparedness at school entry is the strongest individual-level predictor of special education placement, explaining SES disparities as well as minority student overrepresentation in special education programs (Hibel, Farkas and Morgan 2010). We use math score alone as an indicator of academic school readiness because kindergarten literacy test scores are generally unavailable for language minority students. We measure behavioral school readiness using the Approaches to Learning teacher rating scale. This six-item scale indexes teachers reports regarding students task persistence, attentiveness, exibility, eagerness to learn, learning independence and organization, with higher scores representing better perceived behavior. We measure academic ability and classroom behavior at school entry only. We do so because including students scores from subsequent years would introduce endogeneity bias to the analysis, as ESL and special education may be causally related to students performance on standardized tests and teachers perceptions of their behavior. We standardized the Item Response Theory-scaled math test scores and approaches to learning ratings across our analytic sample ( x =0, s=1) to facilitate interpretation. Additional child-level control variables include age at kindergarten entry (measured in months), premature birth (birth more than two weeks prior to due date) and a dummy variable reecting whether the child changed schools during the study period. Each of these variables has been implicated in prior research as an inuence on childrens academic performance and/or likelihood of special education placement.4 In addition to child/family-level inuences, we examine the effect of school characteristics on childrens longitudinal risk for special education placement with LD. School-level covariates include school sector (public or private), proportion of students who are nonwhite, proportion of students who are limitedEnglish-procient (LEP), average math and approaches to learning scores and average family SES. School sector, racial/ethnic composition and LEP composition were obtained from school records. We calculated average math, approaches to learning and family SES scores by aggregating student-level scores within schools. Each school-level covariate is modeled as time-invariant, and all school data are drawn from the kindergarten-year data le.

Delayed Special Education Placement

511

Method
We use a form of discrete time hazard modeling to describe and explain students temporal patterns of initial placement into special education with an LD diagnosis. We begin by estimating a baseline logit hazard model that describes the pattern of risk over time for special education placement with LD. In subsequent models we examine the effects of immigrant generational status, language minority status, ESL participation and additional controls on the baseline hazard functions elevation and slope. We present the discrete time hazard model as the following random-intercept logistic regression equation:

logit{Pr( yij =1 | x ij , j )} = 1 + 2 x 2 j + 3 x 2 j 2 + 4 x3 j + 5 x 2 j x3 j + 6 x 4ij + 7 x 2 j x 4ij + j

where i is an integer representing the number of years of schooling child j has received, x2j and x2j2 represent linear and quadratic effects5 of time, x3j represents a vector of time-invariant child-level characteristics, x4ij indicates the time-varying covariate measuring ESL participation, and j represents a child-specic random intercept capturing unobserved child-level heterogeneity. The interaction terms associated with 5 and 7 represent the effects of child-level covariates on the slope of the logit hazard function (i.e., our models do not impose a proportional odds assumption with respect to these covariates). Our nal model includes school-level covariates in addition to child/familylevel variables. We modify the random-intercept logit model to estimate

logit{Pr( yijk =1 | x ijk , j , k )}

by adding a random intercept term varying over schools (k). As is the case in most large-scale, longitudinal studies, missing data present a challenge to ECLS-K analysts. Sample attrition is the source of much of this missingness. The ECLS-K data contain information regarding special education placement for approximately6 16,970 students in the kindergarten year, but attrition reduces the sample size to approximately 11,810 in the fth grade wave (a 30% decrease in sample size). Attrition levels are comparable between children of immigrants (29%) and U.S.-born parents (31%), but higher among children from English-only households (32%) than language minority households (24%). We used a multiple imputation approach (Royston 2004) to help avoid bias resulting from nonrandom item missingness on the independent variables. We imputed 10 complete datasets, and the results presented below were calculated using these data.7

512 Social Forces 91(2)

Results
Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for the full analytic sample as well as separately by parental nativity. A comparison of the mean special education
Table 1: Variable Means/Proportions by Parental Nativity Full Sample (N=17,740) Proportion Ever placed in special education with LD Ever participated in ESL Immigrant family Language minority Non-Latino white Non-Latino black Latino, any race Non-Latino Asian Other ethnicity Female Premature birth Changed schools K-5 Public school Family SES Fall K math score Fall K app. to learning Age at school entry Proportion nonwhite students Proportion LEP students School mean math score School mean app. to learning School mean SES .058 .142 .213 .248 .563 .147 .174 .064 .054 .487 .168 .295 .789 Mean -.053 -.021 .022 68.521 .380 .082 -.031 .003 -.053 SD 1.012 1.008 .991 4.443 .274 .174 .537 .392 .659 Children of Immigrants (N=3,780) Proportion .050 .470 1.000 .802 .183 .059 .468 .232 .060 .487 .154 .337 .830 Mean -.199 -.225 .014 68.687 .595 .212 -.195 -.038 -.200 SD 1.104 1.021 .988 4.324 .321 .244 .574 .376 .714 Children of Native-Born (N=13,960) Proportion .061 .053 .000 .097 .666 .170 .094 .018 .052 .487 .172 .284 .778 Mean -.013 .034 .024 67.676 .322 .047 .013 .015 -.020 SD .983 .995 .991 4.450 .243 .125 .516 .395 .635

Notes: SD=standard deviation. All frequencies rounded to the nearest 10 per NCES regulations. Sample sizes for children of immigrant and native-born parents reect the average across 10 imputations. t test of mean/proportion differences between children of immigrant and nativeborn parents are signicant at p<.05 except Fall K Approaches to Learning, Female and Other Ethnicity.

Delayed Special Education Placement

513

placement frequencies during the K-5 period between children of immigrant and native-born parents suggests that children of immigrants are less likely to receive special education services at some point during the elementary school years. This difference arises despite children of immigrants greater prevalence of risk factors for low academic performance, including lower family SES, lower math achievement at school entry, higher levels of language minority status, higher levels of racial/ethnic minority status and greater mobility between schools. Furthermore, on average, children of immigrants attend schools with lower math and approaches to learning sores, lower family SES and higher proportions of nonwhite and LEP students. Compared to special education placement disparities, generational status differences in ESL participation are much more pronounced. Approximately 47 percent of children of immigrants receive ESL services at some point in the elementary school years, compared to ve percent of third-plus generation children. Table 2 presents year-by-year comparisons of students proportionate representation in LD and ESL programs by immigrant generational status and ESL
Table 2. Student Representation in Special Education and ESL Programs, by Grade Percentage in Special Education with LD Kindergarten First grade Third grade Fifth grade Percentage in Special Education with LD Kindergarten First grade Third grade Fifth grade Percentage Receiving ESL Services First grade Third grade Fifth grade

Full Sample .63 (N=17,740) 1.26 (N=17,350) 3.10 (N=15,180) 5.62 (N=11,730)

Immigrant Parents .53 2.22** 4.94 (N=3,790) (N=3,520) (N=2,960) .62*** (N=3,690)

Nonimmigrant Parents .65 3.36** 5.85 (N=13,960) (N=11,660) (N=8,770) 1.44*** (N=13,660)

Full Sample .63 (N=17,740) 1.26 (N=17,350) 3.10 (N=15,180) 5.62 (N=11,730)

ESL Recipients .31 .37** 2.56 8.07* (N=1,630) (N=1,620) (N=1,170) (N=760)

Non-ESL Students .66 1.35** 3.14 5.45* (N=16,110) (N=15,730) (N=14,000) (N=10,970)

Full Sample

Immigrant Parents

Nonimmigrant Parents 2.23*** (N=13,960) 2.35*** (N=13,660) 1.60*** (N=11,660) 1.76*** (N=8,770)

Kindergarten 9.18 (N=17,740) 34.76*** (N=3,790) 9.32 (N=17,350) 35.09*** (N=3,690) 7.72 (N=15,180) 28.00*** (N=3,520) 6.45 (N=11,730) 20.35*** (N=2,960)

p<.10 *p<.05 ** p<.01 *** p<.001 Note: t test of mean difference between children of foreign-born and native-born parents.

514 Social Forces 91(2)

participation. While the descriptive statistics presented in Table 1 indicate that children of immigrants are less likely to ever receive special education services during the K-5 period, the statistics presented in the rst panel of Table 2 indicate that this discrepancy is more pronounced in rst and third grade than in kindergarten or fth grade when mean differences fail to reach conventional levels of statistical signicance. As the second panel in Table 2 illustrates, students in kindergarten and rst grade rarely receive ESL and special education services simultaneously. However, a statistically equivalent proportion of ESL recipients and nonrecipients are placed in special education in third grade, and a signicantly greater proportion of ESL students received special education services for LD in fth grade. The third panel of Table 2 highlights the high ESL participation rates of rst- and second-generation children across the elementary school years, especially during the earlier grades. When this trend is considered in conjunction with the association between ESL and special education services, we hypothesize that it will statistically explain immigrant students lower proportionate representation in special education programs for LD. Figures 1 and 2 plot predicted hazard probabilities of receiving special education services for LD, estimated from life table calculations in Stata 11. These probabilities are conditional only on parental nativity (Figure 1) and ever receiving ESL services during the K-5 period (Figure 2). As Figure 1 illustrates, children in immigrant families demonstrate a lower predicted likelihood of special education placement than third-plus generation children during the rst ve years of schooling (i.e., kindergarten to fourth grade). The curves then cross, and by the end of the fth grade year children of immigrants demonstrate a greater estimated hazard probability. These predicted probabilities therefore suggest that children of immigrants face lower likelihoods of special education placement with LD than their third-plus generation peers for much of the K-5 period. Figure 2 presents a temporal pattern in which students who receive ESL services during the elementary years begin school with lower predicted probabilities of being placed in special education than their English procient peers. However, ESL recipients demonstrate a steep increase in the estimated hazard following the rst grade year, at which point the estimated hazard curves cross and ESL recipients demonstrate a greater risk of special education placement. This discrepancy increases through the end of the fth grade year. The present study tests the hypothesis that children of immigrants comparatively lower levels of special education placement with LD in the early grades can be attributed to this ESL-related delay in placement with LD. Over one third of rst- and second-generation children participate in ESL programs during kindergarten and rst grade; does this account for the observed discrepancy in the longitudinal hazards of children from immigrant and nonimmigrant families? Table 3 presents the results of the discrete-time hazard models. Model 1 is the baseline model. The slope coefcients in Model 1 describe a positive concave function that begins low in the fall of kindergarten (i.e., when children experience the lowest risk of special education placement with LD) and increases with

Delayed Special Education Placement

515

Figure 1. Fitted Hazard Functions for Receipt of Special Education Services With LD, by Parental Nativity

Estimated Hazard Probability

.005

.01

.015

.02

0.25

.03

Non-Immigrant Immigrant 1 2 3 4 Years of Schooling 5 6

Figure 2. Fitted Hazard Functions for Receipt of Special Education Services With LD, by ESL Participation

Estimated Hazard Probability .01 .015 .02 0.25

.03

.005

Non-ESL ESL Participant 1 2 3 4 Years of Schooling 5 6

516 Social Forces 91(2)

Table 3: Random-Intercept Hazard Models for Receipt of Special Education with a Learning Disability Diagnosis Model 1 Coef. Immigrant Family Language Minority ESL Services Receipt Non-Latino Black Latino, Any Race Non-Latino Asian Other Ethnicity Family SES Fall Kindergarten Math Score Fall Kindergarten App. To Learning Age at School Entry Female Premature Birth Changed Schools K-5 Public School Proportion Nonwhite Students Proportion LEP Students School Mean Math Score School Mean App. To Learning School Mean SES Intercept -9.75 -(.26) .00 -10.40 ** (.91) .00 -9.59*** -.27 .00 S.E. exp() Coef. Independent Variables: Model Intercept -1.28*** (.36) .28 -.79** (.29) .45 Model 2 S.E Exp() Coef. Model 3 S.E. exp()

Delayed Special Education Placement

517

Model 4 Coef. -1.08* -.17 S.E (.42) (.38) exp() .34 .84 Coef. -.88* .13

Model 5 S.E (.43) (.39) exp() .41 1.14 .17 Coef. -.48 -.19

Model 6 S.E (.49) (.53) (.61) (.42) (.70) (1.95) (.14) (.21) (.14) exp() .62 .83 .12 .49 .66 .77 .92 .18 .43 Coef. -.63 -.13

Model 7 S.E (.49) (.52) (.68) (.45) (.67) (1.93) (.56) (.17) (.24) (.15) (.02) (.23) (.29) (.24) (.48) (.05) (.11) (.43) (.36) (.35) exp() .53 .88 .10 .54 .70 .70 1.11 .94 .18 .36 1.25 1.08 1.90 1.67 5.16 .90 1.02 1.32 3.00 1.13 .00

-1.79 ** (.62)

-2.14*** -.72 -.42 -.26 .00 -.08 -1.74*** -.85*** .21*** .02 .67* .40

-2.28*** -.62 -.36 -.35 .10 -.06 -1.73*** -1.01*** .22*** .08 .64* .51* 1.64*** -.11* .02 .28 1.10** .12

(.52) 1.00

(.02) 1.23 (.22) 1.02 (.29) 1.95 (.23) 1.49

-9.55*** (.27)

.00

-9.71*** (.61)

.00

-24.79*** (1.72)

.00

-27.17*** (1.85)

Continued

518 Social Forces 91(2)

Table 3: (Continued) Model 1 Coef. Independent Variables: Slope Years of Schooling Years of Schooling2 Immigrant Family Language Minority ESL Service Receipt Non-Latino Black Latino, Any Race Non-Latino Asian Other Ethnicity Family SES Fall Kindergarten Math Score Fall Kindergarten App. To Learning Age at School Entry Female Premature Birth Changed Schools K-5 Public School Proportion Nonwhite Students Proportion LEP Students School Mean Math Score School Mean App. To Learning 1.05*** (.10) -.06*** (.01) 2.86 .94 1.09*** (.11) -.06*** (.01) .15* (.06) 2.97 .94 1.16 .08 (.06) 1.08 1.09*** (.11) -.06*** (.01) 2.97 .94 S.E. exp() Coef. Model 2 S.E Exp() Coef. Model 3 S.E. exp()

School Mean SES

Random-Intercept Variance Level-2 (child) Level-3 (school) Model N Total Observations
p<.10

2.98

(.09) 17,740 62,000

3.37

(.45) 17,740 62,000

2.18

(-.07) 17,740 62,000

Notes: SE=standard error. All frequencies rounded to the nearest 10 per NCES regulations.

*p<.05 ** p<.01 ***p<.001.

Delayed Special Education Placement

519

Model 4 Coef. S.E exp() 2.83 .94 1.15 1.00 Coef.

Model 5 S.E exp() 2.86 .94 1.09 .92 1.62 Coef.

Model 6 S.E exp() Coef.

Model 7 S.E (.39) (.02) (.09) (.10) (.14) (.08) (.12) (.34) (.10) (.04) (.05) (.03) (.01) (.05) (.06) (.05) (.09) (.01) (.02) (.08) (.07) (.07) exp() 5.21 .93 1.08 .93 1.57 .96 1.00 .84 .97 .95 .90 1.04 .99 .84 .91 .93 1.06 1.01 .98 1.01 .94 1.12

1.04*** (.10) -.06*** (.01) .14 -.00 (.08) (.07)

1.05*** (.11) -.06*** (.01) .09 -.08 .48 (.08) (.08) - (.13)

1.58*** -.06*** .07 -.08 .38*** -.09 -.05 -.20 -.07 -.01 -.08 .03 -.01 .02 -.09 -.05

(.36) 4.85 (.01) (.10) .94 .92 (.09) 1.07

1.65*** -.07*** .08 -.07 .45** -.04 -.00 -.17 -.03 -.05 -.10* .04 -.01 -.18*** -.09 -.07 .06 .01 -.02 .01 -.06 .11

(.12) 1.46 (.08) (.12) (.34) (.10) (.03) (.04) .91 .95 .82 .93 .99 .92

(.03) 1.03 (.01) (.06) (.05) .99 .91 .95

(.22) 1.02

2.98

(.10) 17,740 62,000

3.05

(.27) 17,740 62,000

2.63

(.11) 17,740 62,000

1.21 2.38

(.09) (.12) 17,740 62,000

520 Social Forces 91(2)

additional years of schooling, with the hazards rate of increase slowing toward the end of the duration period. Model 2 presents conditional hazard estimates accounting for effects of parental nativity on the initial elevation and linear slope components of the hazard function.8 Children of immigrants have signicantly lower initial hazards (exp()=0.28, p<.001), but their predicted hazards increase more rapidly (exp()=1.16, p < .01) over the elementary school years than those of children with U.S.-born parents. In other words, children of immigrants appear to be at less risk of special education placement with LD during the rst years of schooling, but the gap narrows over time, as illustrated in Figure 1. Supplementary analyses demonstrate that race/ethnicity and national origin do not moderate the generational status effect (i.e., this and all subsequent models behave equivalently for all children of immigrants regardless of their racial/ethnic or national origin background).9 Model 3 examines the relationship between language minority status and students special education hazard. Language minority childrens initial estimated odds of placement are 55 percent lower than those of children in English only homes (p<.001). However, the nonsignicant coefcient for the effect of language minority status on the hazards rate of change indicates language minority students relative risk (compared to language majority students) neither increases nor decreases over time. In Model 4, we test our hypothesis that language minority status drives the discrepant timing of initial special education placement with LD between children of immigrant and native-born parents evidenced by Model 2. If this were the case, we would expect that the Model 2 generational status effects on the hazard functions elevation and slope would be mediated when variables measuring language minority status are added to the model. The inclusion of the language minority status indicator results in a 16 percent reduction in the magnitude of the immigrant parent coefcient on the model intercept, and reduces that coefcients statistical signicance to p<.05. Likewise, the positive immigrant parent coefcient on the hazards rate of increase over time declines to marginal signicance with the inclusion of the language minority status indicator. However, conditional on generational status, language minority status is not signicantly related to the risk of special education placement with LD. We test our hypothesis that the receipt of ESL services mediates the association between rst- or second-generational status and the odds of special education placement with LD in Model 5. In concurrence with the bivariate relationships between ESL receipt and special education placement demonstrated in Figure 2, estimates from Model 5 indicate that ESL recipients have signicantly lower initial hazards for special education placement than non-ESL students (exp()=0.17, p < .01) and their predicted hazards also increase more rapidly over time (exp()=1.62, p < .001). Controlling for ESL participation and language minority status, the estimated odds of initial special education placement among children of immigrants are 59 percent lower than children of native-born parents, and the gap remains statistically signicant. The yearly change coefcient for children of immigrant parents is nonsignicant, however. Thus, the

Delayed Special Education Placement

521

association between generational status and students longitudinal change in the instantaneous hazard for special education placement can be statistically explained via these students high levels of ESL receipt, which acts to depress the early risk for special education placement while increasing the risk in later years. Model 6 presents results from an elaborated statistical model including child/ family-level covariates. Kindergarten math and approaches to learning scores are signicantly and negatively associated with the elevation of the hazard curve, while premature birth and age at school entry display positively associations. None of the additional child/family-level variables are associated with the slope of the hazard function at the =.05 level. Of particular interest in the present study is the fact that these background factors inclusion does not alter the statistically signicant relationship between ESL receipt and a students risk of special education placement with LD. Results from Model 6 suggest that, relative to non-ESL participants, ESL participants have 88 percent lower initial odds of special education placement with LD, but experience a 46 percent increase in the estimated odds with each passing year. Model 7 presents results from the full, three-level hazard model. School-level effects are sparse: public school students initial odds of special education placement with LD are 5.16 times those of private school students, though the slopes of their hazard functions are not signicantly different. Children in schools with better average student behavior have increased odds of initial special education placement (exp()=3.00, p < .01). Incorporating a school-level random intercept and school-level covariates leads to changes in some child/family-level coefcients. Compared with previous models, Model 7 predicts stronger negative effects of ESL participation and student approaches to learning, as well as a newly signicant positive effect of school mobility on the hazard functions elevation. With respect to yearly change in the hazard, the full model predicts signicant negative effects of students math ability and female gender, as well as a stronger positive effect of ESL participation.

Discussion
As international migration continues to shape the demographic landscape of the United States, it will become increasingly important for elementary schools to provide diverse children of immigrants with high-quality opportunities to learn. This mission includes providing appropriately tailored special education services to students with special learning needs. Special education services constitute a large-scale intervention, serving over 6.6 million students in U.S. schools (U.S. Department of Education 2010). With rst- and second-generation children constituting approximately one quarter of the school-age population of the United States (Hernandez etal. 2009), we would expect at least 1.6 million children of immigrants to receive special education services in U.S. schools. We examined the timing of special education placement with the highest incidence disability, LD, among children of immigrants. Analyzing data from the ECLS-K, we tested three hypotheses: (1) children of immigrants demonstrate a distinctive temporal pattern of delayed special education placement with LD;

522 Social Forces 91(2)

(2) this pattern can be attributed to children of immigrants high frequency of language minority status; and (3) ESL service receipt in the early years drives rst- or second-generation and language minority childrens delayed special education placement with LD. Our ndings indicate that, compared to third-plus generation children, immigrant students experience a different pattern of special education risk during elementary school. Children in immigrant families face comparatively lower odds of special education placement with LD in the early grades, but begin to demonstrate an increasing risk as the school years progress. With respect to our second hypothesis, accounting for language minority status partially mediated the estimated relationship between generational status and odds of special education placement (Model 4). However, while the unconditional direct effect of language minority status on childrens initial risk of special education placement was negative and signicant (Model 3), this association failed to reach statistical signicance after controlling for generational status (Model 4). Results supported our nal hypothesis: children in immigrant families do not have signicantly different estimated hazard probabilities for special education placement from children of native-born parents once we control for their more frequent participation in ESL programs. Our ndings are consistent with research indicating that schools use ESL programs as an alternative to special education during the rst years of elementary school. Students identied for ESL service receipt most of whom (76% in this sample) are the children of immigrants are signicantly less likely to be considered for special education receipt until the third grade. By the end of the fth grade year, however, these students are disproportionately likely to be placed in special education for LD. Educators often intentionally delay referring language minority students for special education services until they are able to demonstrate English prociency (Garcia and Ortiz 1988; Geva, Yaghoub-Zadeh, and Schuster 2000; Limbos and Geva, 2001; Samson and Lesaux 2009). There are several reasons for this approach: mainstream and ESL education are less expensive than special education (Garcia and Ortiz 1988); stigma and reduced opportunities to learn make special education placement a potentially damaging intervention for inappropriately placed students (Donovan and Cross 2002; Klingner and Harry 2006); and special education teachers may be less capable of teaching language minority students (e.g., 15% of special education teachers in the ECLS-K sample had taken a college course in ESL or bilingual education, compared with 31% of regular classroom teachers). Teachers and administrators may seek to minimize the number of false positive LD diagnoses by delaying LD assessment until students are capable of being evaluated in English. Likewise, school professionals may believe that students with LD must be English procient to benet from the special education curriculum. In these cases, the decision to intentionally delay language minority immigrant students LD assessment may be made with the best of intentions. However, one interpretation of the present studys results suggests that the children of immigrants represent a population that has an equal need for special

Delayed Special Education Placement

523

ducation e services for LD (evidenced by their statistically equivalent placement rates in fth grade), but one that is comparatively less to receive such services during the rst years of schooling.10 In light of research documenting the necessity (Lyon 1996) of appropriate early intervention for mitigating the negative developmental consequences of LD, delaying disability assessment and remediation may lead to increased disadvantages for language minority immigrant students who are most at-risk for school failure. To borrow a legal aphorism, justice delayed is justice denied. Our ndings regarding the complex relationship between ESL and special education receipt for rst- and second-generation children underscore what Artiles and colleagues refer to as the importance of systematically examining how the conuence of multiple policy initiatives can have unintended consequences for various groups. (Artiles etal. 2010:284)

Limitations and Future Directions

While we believe our ndings from analyses of this large, longitudinal sample are robust, there are data limitations that necessitate mention. Given our research questions, the ECLS-Ks most signicant data limitation is the lack of available information regarding certain teacher-, school-, and district-level resources for providing accessible and effective special education and ESL services. In light of prior work demonstrating the salience of nancial support and teacher qualications for identifying or remediating special learning needs (e.g., Palmer etal. 2005; Figueroa and Newsome 2006), there is the potential for the omission of such factors to produce selection bias in our analysis. These and other unobserved factors have the potential to cause unequal odds of special education and/ or ESL placement among students who appear similar after adjusting for the variables we include. Because students are far from randomly distributed across districts and schools, unobserved heterogeneity at these levels may account for a portion of the individual-level variation in special education placement, a phenomenon that challenges our ability to draw denitive causal inferences from this nonexperimental study. For example, our estimates of children of immigrants odds of being placed into special education with LD could be downwardly biased if (1 such students disproportionately attend schools with fewer resources available to support special education programs, and (2 this variation was not accounted for by the school-level measures incorporated in our analysis. It is also important to consider the potential endogeneity of ESL participation with respect to other schooling outcomes, including special education receipt. Because student participation in ESL programs varies over time, it may be important to account for the ESL populations changing composition when investigating the longitudinal relationship between ESL and special education. Table 4 presents each of the observed longitudinal patterns of ESL participation in the ECLS-K sample, as well as the proportion of ESL recipients who demonstrated each pattern. Only 19 percent of ESL recipients participated in ESL in every observed elementary school grade, which suggests substantial uidity over time in students ESL classication. To the extent that students who stopped receiving ESL

524 Social Forces 91(2)

Table 4. Observed Patterns of ESL Participation over Time Kindergarten First grade Third grade Fifth grade

Proportion of .19 .13 .13 .11 .10 .10 .06 .05 .03 .03 .02 .02 .02 .01 ESL recipients

ervices after the early elementary school years made better educational progress s than those who continued or initiated ESL service receipt in later years, endogeneity bias may inuence the relationships reported in the present study (i.e., ESL receipt may be increasingly positively associated with special education placement over time because both are caused by the same underlying inuences). A thorough study of the causes and consequences of variations in ESL transitions would exceed the present articles space constraints. As a rst step, however, Table 5 presents hazard model estimates of students longitudinal odds of leaving ESL, conditional on participating in ESL during the kindergarten year. Results indicate that the hazard functions elevation is lower for children who are Latino, Asian, living in immigrant families, from lower SES backgrounds, older at school entry or initially lower performing in mathematics. Older kindergarteners estimated odds of leaving ESL increase more rapidly than others over time, while odds of exit for language minority children and those with slower math achievement growth increase more slowly. Prior research indicates that academic achievement, Latino or Asian race/ ethnicity and family SES are each negatively associated with odds of special education placement with LD (Hibel at al. 2010). Based upon the longitudinal pattern of risk described in Table 5, we would predict that the population of ESL recipients in later grades has lower average SES and math achievement, but greater proportions of Latino and Asian students than the ESL population in earlier years. The former changes would increase ESL students average risk of special education placement, while the latter would decrease it. Given the absence of denitive evidence of endogeneity bias in the present study, future research will be necessary to identify whether and, if so, how changes in the composition of ESL recipients relate to the relationship between ESL receipt and special education placement for LD discussed in this article. Looking beyond the present ndings, we may identify additional elements upon which future research could improve. In particular, future work on this topic would benet from increased focus in two areas: investigating additional explanatory factors driving the pattern of delayed special education placement among immigrant students and measuring the consequences of this pattern for immigrant students academic and socioemotional development. With respect to the rst avenue for extending this research, the analyses presented above focus on a set of child/family and school-level independent

Delayed Special Education Placement

525

Table 5. Random-Intercept Hazard Models for Exit from ESL Service Receipt Model Intercept Coef. Immigrant family Language minority Non-Latino black Latino, any race Non-Latino Asian Other ethnicity Family SES Time-varying math score Fall K. app. to learning Age at school entry Female Premature birth Changed schools K-5 Years of schooling Years of schooling2 Intraclass correlation Model N total observations Note: SE=standard error. .33*** 1,680 6,740 (.04) -.81** -.57 .09 -.97** -1.00* .32 .51*** .33** .12 -.02*** .05 .01 -.10 SE (.25) (.31) (.48) (.35) (.40) (.44) (.12) (.12) (.10) (.01) (.20) (.30) (.22) exp() .44 .57 1.09 .38 .37 1.38 1.67 1.39 1.13 .98 1.05 1.01 .90 Coef. .04 -.27* -.02 -.10 -.12 -.14 .06 .08* -.02 .02*** .09 .01 .07 1.05** -.21*** Model Slope SE (.08) (.12) (.18) (.17) (.17) (.21) (.05) (.03) (.03) (.00) (.06) (.09) (.06) (.32) (.02) exp() 1.04 .76 1.09 .90 .89 .87 1.06 1.08 .98 1.02 1.09 1.01 1.07 2.86 .81

ariables found by prior research to predict students differential special eduv cation placement rates. By undertaking a more nuanced examination of the within-school LD and ESL identication processes (as well as between-school variation in their implementation), future work may identify components of schools organizational and instructional practices that promote or discourage children of immigrants delayed special education placement with LD. The role of immigrant parents in the LD identication and special education placement process should also be examined in future work. To the extent that immigrant parents face barriers to involvement in their childrens education vis--vis school professionals, they may be less able to advocate for early intervention services or against unjustied placements in later years. Promising examples of more microlevel analyses in this area include the work of Hardin and colleagues (2009) and Klingner and Harry (2006). The second area in need of additional research involves the academic and developmental consequences of the temporal patterns identied in the present

526 Social Forces 91(2)

study. Although one reading of these results might view immigrant students reduced access to early intervention special education services as problematic, it is by no means certain that delayed special education placement with LD has strong negative consequences for members of this population. In fact, recent research ndings indicate that special education services during the third grade most often have null or negative effects on fth-grade learning and behavior in the general student population (Morgan etal. 2010). If it is also the case that special education has negligible or deleterious consequences for immigrant students early academic trajectories, a pattern of delayed special education placement might in fact be a blessing in disguise.

Funding
This study was supported by a grant to the rst author from the Clifford B. Kinley Trust, administered by Purdue University.

Notes
1. All descriptions of the ECLS-K data are drawn from Tourangeau etal. (2009). 2. The ECLS-K Teacher Questionnaires dene an ESL program as an instructional program designed to teach listening, speaking, reading, and writing English language skills to children with limited English prociency. The same questionnaires dene a bilingual education program as a program in which native language is used to varying degrees in instructing children. 3. Researchers analyzing high school data have found that school administrative records may not be reliable indicators of ESL participation (Callahan, Wilkinson and Muller 2010). While we are unable to formally assess the reliability of the ESL indicator in the present study, we note that the ECLS-Ks use of childrens classroom teachers as the source of information regarding instructional content as well as the explicit denition of the terms ESL and bilingual in the ECLS-K questionnaire (see note 2) should guard against conceptual ambiguity and inaccurate reporting of ESL participation 4. While we present our most parsimonious model specications here, we also estimated the hazard models described in the Method section with more extensive covariate lists (see online supplementary material for results of these analyses). None of the following variables improved model t, nor did they demonstrate signicant direct or moderated effects on childrens odds of special education placement with LD net of the variables included in the nal model: parents age, parents educational expectations for the child, childs externalizing behaviors, frequency with which parents read to the child, number of books in the home and prekindergarten childcare/education arrangements. 5. Model t analyses indicate that, compared with linear and higher order specications, a quadratic function best represents the shape of the longitudinal hazard. 6. Frequencies are rounded to the nearest ten students in accordance with the National Center for Education Statistics nondisclosure policies. 7. Descriptions of variables included in the multiple imputation model are available in online supplementary material. 8. Alternative model specications indicated that no model covariates signicantly moderated the quadratic slope term.

Delayed Special Education Placement

527

9. These analyses tested multiple model specications, including random-intercept models with interaction terms between panethnic identiers and the duration variables, the estimation of direct and moderating effects of national origin for Mexican and Puerto Rican children (the only national origin groups with sufciently large samples of LD-identied children) and a re-estimation of all models using sample splits along pan-ethnic and national origin lines. Regardless of model specication, the results were consistent with those presented above with one exception: in certain moderation models, negative effects of rst- or second-generational status on the initial hazard appeared signicantly stronger among Latino students than those from other racial/ethnic backgrounds. 10. An alternative interpretation suggests that immigrant and language minority children may not necessarily have an equal or greater need for LD remediation until they are placed in ESL programs. If ESL services offer students fewer opportunities to learn and develop, ESL programs themselves may cause participants to evince signs of LD in later years.

Supplementary Material
Supplementary material is available at Social Forces online, www.socialforces. oxfordjournals.org.

References
Artiles, Alfredo J., Elizabeth B. Kozleski, Stanley C. Trent, David Osher, and Alba Ortiz. 2010. Justifying and Explaining Disproportionality, 1968-2008: A Critique of Underlying Views of Culture. Exceptional Children 76(3):279-99. Artiles, Alfredo J., Robert Rueda, Jesus Jose Salazar, and Ignacio Higareda. 2005. Within-Group Diversity in Minority Disproportionate Representation: English Language Learners in Urban School Districts. Exceptional Children 71:283-300. Artiles, Alfredo J., and Stanley C. Trent. 1994. Overrepresentation of Minority Students in Special Education: A Continuing Debate. The Journal of Special Education 27:410-37. Bean, Frank D., and Marta Tienda. 1987. The Hispanic Population of the United States. New York, NY: Russell Sage. Bourdieu, Pierre, and J.C. Passerson. 1977. Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Bowles, Samuel, and Herbert Gintis. 1976. Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and Contradictions of Economic Life. New York, NY: Basic Books Bruder, Mary Beth. 2010. Early Childhood Intervention: A Promise to Children and Families for Their Future. Exceptional Children 76:339-55. Callahan, Rebecca, Lindsey Wilkinson, and Chandra Muller. 2010. Academic Achievement and Course Taking Among Language Minority Youth in U.S. Schools: Effects of ESL Placement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 32:84-117. Carter, Prudence. 2003. Black Cultural Capital, Status Positioning, and Schooling Conicts for LowIncome African American Youth. Social Problems 50:136-55. Coutinho, Martha J., Donald Oswald, and Al M. Best. 2002. The Inuence of Sociodemographics and Gender on the Disproportionate Identication of Minority Students as having Learning Disabilities. Remedial and Special Education 23:49-59. Donovan, M. Suzanne, and Christopher T. Cross (Eds.). 2002. Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

528 Social Forces 91(2)

Farkas, George, Robert P. Grobe, Daniel Sheehan, and Yuan Shuan. 1990. Cultural Resources and School Success: Gender, Ethnicity, and Poverty Groups Within an Urban School District. American Sociological Review 55:127-42. Figueroa, Richard A., and Patricia Newsome. 2006. The Diagnosis of LD in English Learners: Is it Nondiscriminatory? Journal of Learning Disabilities 39:206-14. Garcia, Shernaz B., and Alba A. Ortiz. 1988. Preventing Inappropriate Referrals of Language Minority Students to Special Education. FOCUS/NCBE 5:1-17. Geva, Esther, Zhoreh Yaghoub-Zadeh, and Barbara Schuster. 2000. Understanding Individual Differences in Word Recognition Skills of ESL Children. Annals of Dyslexia 50:123-54. Guiberson, Mark. 2009. Hispanic Representation in Special Education: Patterns and Implications. Preventing School Failure 53:167-76. Guralnick, Michael J. 2005. Early Intervention for Children with Intellectual Disabilities: Current Knowledge and Future Prospects. Journal of Applied Research in Developmental Disabilities 18:313-24. Hardin, Belinda J., Mariana Mereoiu, Hsuan-Fang Hung, and Marisa Roach-Scott. 2009. Investigating Parent and Professional Perspectives Concerning Special Education Services for Preschool Latino Children. Early Childhood Education Journal 37: 93-102. Harry, Beth, and Mary G. Anderson. 1994. The Disproportionate Placement of African American Males in Special Education Programs: A Critique of the Process. The Journal of Negro Education 63:602-19. Harry, Beth A. and Janette Klingner. 2006. Why Are So Many Minority Students in Special Education?: Understanding Race and Disability in School. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Hernandez, Donald J., Suzanne Macartney, Victoria L. Blanchard, and Nancy A. Denton. 2009. MexicanOrigin Children in the United States: Language, Family Circumstances, and Public Policy. In Growing up Hispanic: Health and Development of Children of Immigrants, edited by Nancy S. Landale, Susan McHale, and Alan Booth. Washington DC: Urban Institute. Hibel, Jacob, George Farkas, and Paul L. Morgan. 2010. Who is Placed into Special Education? Sociology of Education 83:312-32. Hosp, John L., and Daniel J. Reschly. 2004. Disproportionate Representation of Minority Students in Special Education: Academic, Demographic and Economic Predictors. Exceptional Children 70:185-99. Indiana Department of Education. n.d. Legal Guidelines for Serving Limited English Procient Students. Available at: http://www.doe.in.gov/lmmp/documents.html Janus, Alexander L. 2009. Disability and the Transition to Adulthood. Social Forces 881:99-120. Jenkins, Joseph R., and Rollanda E. OConnor. 2002. Early Identication and Intervention for Young Children with Reading/Learning Disabilities. Pp. 99-149 in Identication of Learning Disabilities: Research to Practice, edited by Renee Bradley, Louis Danielson, and Daniel P. Hallahan. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Kao, Grace, and Marta Tienda. 1995. Optimism and Achievement: The Educational Performance of Immigrant Youth. Social Science Quarterly 76:1-19. Kieffer, Michael J. 2008. Catching Up or Falling Behind: Initial English Prociency, Concentrated Poverty, and the Reading Growth of Language Minority Learners in the United States. Journal of Educational Psychology 100:851-68. Klingner, Jeanette K., and Beth Harry. 2006. The Special Education Referral and Decision-Making Process for English Language Learners: Child Study Team Meetings and Placement Conferences. Teachers College Record 101:2247-81. Limbos, Marjolaine, and Esther Geva. 2001. Accuracy of Teacher Assessments of Second-Language Students At Risk for Reading Disability. Journal of Learning Disabilities 34:13651. Losen, Daniel J., and Gary Oreld (Eds). 2002. Racial Inequity in Special Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Publishing Group. Lyon, G. Reid. 1996. Learning Disabilities. The Future of Children 6:54-76. McCardle, Peggy, Joan Mele-McCarthy, and Kathleen Leos. 2005. English Language Learners and Learning Disabilities: Research Agenda and Implications for Practice. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice 20:6878.

Delayed Special Education Placement

529

Morgan, Paul, Michelle Frisco, George Farkas, and Jacob Hibel. 2010. A Propensity Score Matching Analysis of the Effects of Special Education Services. The Journal of Special Education 43:236-54. Oakes, Jeannie. 2005. Keeping Track: How School Structure Inequality (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ofce of Civil Rights. 2005. Questions and answers on the rights of limited-English procient students. Available at: http://www2.ed.gov/about/ofces/list/ocr/qa-ell.html Palmer, Raymond F., Stephen Blanchard, Carlos R. Jean, and David S. Mandell. 2005. School District Resources and Identication of Students with Autistic Disorder. American Journal of Public Health 95:125-30. Phelps, L. Allen, and Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell. 1997. School-to-Work Transitions for Youth with Disabilities: A Review of Outcomes and Practices. Review of Educational Research 67:197-226. Pool, Juli L., and Jack J. Hourcade. 2011. Developmental Screening: A Review of Contemporary Practice. Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities 46:267-275. Portes, Alejandro, and Ruben G. Rumbaut. 2006. Immigrant America: A Portrait (3rd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Ragan, Alex, and Nonie Lesaux. 2006. Federal, State, and District Level English Language Learner Program Entry and Exit Requirements: Effects on the Education of Language Minority Learners. Education Policy Analysis Archives 14:1-32. Ramey, Craig T. and Sharon Landesman Ramey. 1998. Early Intervention and Early Experience. American Psychologist 53:109-20. Reschly, Daniel J. 2005. Learning Disabilities Identication: Primary Intervention, Secondary Intervention, and Then What? Journal of Learning Disabilities 38:510-15. Royston, Patrick. 2004. Multiple Imputation of Missing Values. Stata Journal 4:227-441. Rueda, Robert, and Michelle P. Windmueller. 2006. English Language Learners, LD, and Overrepresentation: A Multiple-Level Analysis. Journal of Learning Disabilities 39:99107. Samson, Jennifer F., and Nonie K. Lesaux. 2009. Language-Minority Learners in Special Education: Rates and Predictors of Identication for Services. Journal of Learning Disabilities 42:148-62. Shifrer, Dara, Chandra Muller, and Rebecca Callahan. 2011. Disproportionality and Learning Disabilities: Parsing Apart Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Language. Journal of Learning Disabilities 44:246-257. Shin, Hyon B., and Robert A. Kominski. 2010. Language Use in the United States:2007. American Community Survey Reports, ACS-12. U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC. Slavin, Robert E. 1996. Neverstreaming: Preventing Learning Disabilities. Educational Leadership 53:4-7. Smith, Tom E. C., Edward A. Polloway, James R. Patton, and Carol A. Dowdy. 2008. Teaching Students with Special Needs in Inclusive Settings (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Tourangeau, Karen, Thankh L, Christine Nord, and Alberto Sorongon. 2009. Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K) Eighth-Grade Methodology Report. (NCES 2009-003). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. U.S. Department of Education. 2002. Twenty-fourth Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofce. U.S. Department of Education, Ofce of Special Education Programs. 2010. Thirty-Five Years of Progress in Educating Children with Disabilities Through IDEA.Washington, DC. Available at: http://www2. ed.gov/about/ofces/list/osers/idea35/history/idea-35-history.pdf Wells, Thomas, Gary D. Sandefur, and Dennis P. Hogan. 2003. What Happens After the High School Years Among Young Persons with Disabilities? Social Forces 82:803-32. Young, John W., and Teresa C. King. 2008. Testing Accommodations for English Language Learners: A Review of State and District Policies. College Board Research Report No. 2008-6, 1-21. Zhou, Min. 1997. Segmented Assimilation: Issues, Controversies, and Recent Research on the New Second Generation. International Migration Review 31:975-1008.