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New York Hotline: Special Ed #304, excerpt 1
Date: Feb 26, 1996
Caption: A local news show discussed special education in the 1990s, with comments from a Board of Education official, a parent advocate, and an attorney who represented Disabled students and students labeled disabled.
Among New York City students with disability labels today, most are in the category of “learning disability.” This category came into existence in the 1960s, when parent advocates, educators, and psychologists wanted to figure out how to understand students who were struggling with skills like reading or arithmetic, but who did not otherwise seem to have intellectual disabilities.1 Dyslexia, for example, is one kind of learning disability.
In New York City, ideas about disability and disability categories have long been connected to ideas about race.2 In the 1970s as shown by this federal investigation, in the 1990s as discussed in the video, and today, Black and Latinx students, and students living in poverty, are more likely to be identified as “learning disabled” than white students and wealthier students.3 Many advocates, like the speaker in this video, have been concerned that students are labeled “learning disabled” because the school system is not designed to support them.
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Scot J. Danforth, The Incomplete Child: An Intellectual History of Learning Disabilities (New York: Peter Lang, 2009). ↩︎
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Keith Mayes, The Unteachables: Disability Rights and the Invention of Black Special Education (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2023); Francine Almash, “New York City ‘600’ Schools and the Legacy of Segregation in Special Education,” The Gotham Center for New York City History, June 21, 2022, https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/new-york-city-600-schools-and-the-legacy-of-segregation-in-special-education. ↩︎
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Cheri Fancsali, “Special Education in New York City: Understanding the Landscape,” The Research Alliance for New York City Schools at NYU Steinhardt, 2019, https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/2021-03/Special_Education_in_New_York_City_final.pdf. ↩︎
Categories: community activism, special education, K-12 organizing
Tags: disability labels, racist segregation, learning disability, teacher quality, newspapers and the media
This item is part of "Tests, Labels, and Segregation in New York City" in "Seeking Equity for Disabled Students"
Item Details
Date: Feb 26, 1996
Creator: New York Hotline, WNYC
Source: Municipal Archives of the City of New York Digital Collections
Copyright: Under copyright. Used with permission. Courtesy of the Municipal Archives of the City of New York.
How to cite: “New York Hotline: Special Ed #304, excerpt 1,” New York Hotline, WNYC, in New York City Civil Rights History Project, Accessed: [Month Day, Year], https://nyccivilrightshistory.org/gallery/ny-hotline-special-ed-1.
Questions to Consider
- Imagine a classroom where every student has what they need to learn. What materials are in the room? Who is in the room? What is happening in the room?
- According to the video, what factors led to students being labeled as learning disabled?
- How do you think large class sizes and lack of teacher knowledge affect students who have learning disabilities?
- What do you think has changed since 1996 when this video was made? What do you think has stayed the same?
References
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