Abstract
Special Education assessment issues and placement litigation controversies have focused almost exclusively on the question of bias in intelligence quotient (IQ), the classifications of students from the IQ tests, and minority overrepresentation of educable mentally retarded (EMR) students. This study compared traditional (IQ tests) and alternative (non-IQ tests) assessment procedures used in special education identification and classification in the Long Beach Unified School District. Twenty-eight elementary schools participated in this study. The sample included 102 randomly selected students referred for a special education assessment to determine eligibility and classification. A non-district psychologist administered the traditional assessment procedures which included the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R). The district psychologists administered alternative assessment procedures which included instruments other than IQ tests. A chi-square goodness of fit was used to analyze the proportions of eligible students for both procedures. The expected proportions were obtained from traditional procedures and observed proportions from alternative procedures. The.05 level was used to determine if significant differences existed between the two procedures. The findings were as follows: (1) There was 75 percent agreement in eligibility identification and 71 percent agreement in the classifications of students using both procedures. (2) Significantly more students were eligible for special education using alternative versus traditional procedures. (3) Significantly more students were classified LD by alternative and ineligible by traditional procedures. About 5 percent were classified EMR by traditional and LD by alternative procedures. (4) There was no significant difference in the total proportions of eligible Caucasian, African-American, and Hispanic students using traditional versus alternative procedures. (5) When comparing the students individually, there were significantly more Caucasian and African-American students eligible for special education using alternative procedures. There was no significant difference in the eligible Hispanic students using the two procedures. The banning of IQ tests and use of alternative procedures was to correct overrepresentation of minority students in special education. The results of this study do not strongly support alternative procedures as the sole criterion of equity among various groups. It is recommended that this study be replicated comparing alternative and traditional assessment procedures to develop consistent operational procedures for special education identification and classification. The initial political concern was that too many minorities were identified for special education using traditional procedures. In this study, 102 students were considered of which 40 percent Hispanic, 32 percent African-American, and 28 percent Caucasian were identified as eligible for special education using traditional procedures. However, from these same students, 34 percent Hispanic, 35 percent African-American, and 31 percent Caucasian were identified for special education. When comparing these two sets of distributions, no statistical differences resulted.