A comment on the bell curve effect and placement

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4) Another friend commented:

You’re  certainly right about the disproportionate use of private school placement by upper income families.  

 In general, low income and minority kids cluster in district-provided self-contained settings  (which are considered more restrictive), while white students tend to be in resource room and inclusion placements (less restrictive), and also in district-paid private school placements (which are considered  quite restrictive).  

In other words,  there’s a kind of bell curve effect by restrictiveness of setting.  Low-income, minority students cluster in the mid-range (self-contained in-school)  settings, which tend to have very poor outcomes.  White and affluent students show a reverse bell curve, clustering in the least restrictive and most restrictive (private) settings, both of which tend to have much more positive outcomes.  

For any  individual kid, the placement determination is supposed to be made based on the student’s unique needs, but obviously race and SES status play a huge role in where kids actually end up.  When I investigated these issues for the feds, we would even hear occasional admissions in NYC from members of the placement team that they wouldn’t put a particular white child in a self-contained district setting because he would be the only white student in the  class.