Unmeasured Confounding and Racial or Ethnic Disparities in Disability Identification

Abstract

Students who are Black or Hispanic are now reported to be less likely to be identified as having disabilities than similarly situated students who are White. Although repeatedly replicated, this finding is often characterized as in error. I use a new statistical technique, the E-value, to quantify the likelihood that unmeasured confounding explains observed associations between race or ethnicity and disability identification. Results based on calculations across three population-based studies using extensive statistical controls suggest that unmeasured confounding is an unlikely explanation for the observed associations. Unmeasured confounding that would result in levels of overidentification consistent with federal law and regulation is especially unlikely.

Language and Special Education Status: 2009–2019 Tennessee Trends

“…To a greater extent than unadjusted analyses, adjusted analyses typically point to underrepresentation (Hibel et al, 2010; Morgan et al, 2017). However, even without adjusting for student- and district-level factors hypothesized to be associated with SPED identification, our results point to underrepresentation by language status, mirroring Morgan’s (2021) recent findings of underidentification of Black and Latino students.…”

Factors associated with proportionality of representation of children of color in early childhood special education in Illinois

“…A literature synthesis examining the disproportionate representation of Black children in special education found that only 2.1% of coefficient estimates supported the conclusion that Black children are overrepresented in special education (Morgan et al, 2017a). A recent study investigated the potential for an unmeasured confounding variable being responsible for research teams repeatedly finding underrepresentation of COCs in special education relative to White children and found that this was statistically unlikely (Morgan, 2021). It is important to note, however, that much of the research concluding that COCs are underrepresented in special education is completed by members of the same research team.…”