Significant disproportionality tracks when students of certain racial or ethnic groups are over- or underrepresented in special education. It’s one of the tools used to spot states and districts where there are racial gaps in how students are identified for services, placed in programs, or disciplined.
While this proposal doesn’t change the mandate for states to track disproportionality and take action when needed what would change is that states would no longer have to include this information in their IDEA applications — which means the federal government would stop collecting it and families and advocates would lose an important window into what’s happening statewide.
Why is this being proposed? The ED stated that this move would reduce the paperwork required by states when completing the Annual State Application under Part B of IDEA. It was recently announced that this proposal will go forward in a change to the regulations under IDEA.
To give some background, every year, each state education authority (such as the California Department of Education) has to collect data and report to the federal government to show how they are implementing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The federal government uses this data to determine if they need to respond to the state’s plan and recommend or mandate changes. Over 50 years of implementing IDEA, there are many examples of how monitoring has led to improvement, despite the lack of teeth in the power of the ED.
The SPP/APR - an annual report by the state on special education has to report on 17 key indicators: Graduation (B1), Dropout (B2), Assessment (B3), Suspension/Expulsion (B4), Education Environments (Children 5-21) (B5), Preschool Environments (B6), Preschool Outcomes (B7), Parent Involvement (B8),
Disproportionate Representation (B9), Disproportionate Representation in Specific Disability Categories (B10), Child Find (B11), Early Childhood Transition (B12), Secondary Transition (B13), Post-School Outcomes (B14), Resolution Sessions (B15), Mediation (B16), State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP) Evaluation (B17).
While the federal law requires each state to collect data and report it, each state is allowed to come up with its own definition of what constitutes significant disproportionality. Disproportionality is a statistical calculation that compares:
This is often expressed as a risk ratio or relative risk ratio, where a ratio greater than 1 indicates overrepresentation and less than 1 indicates underrepresentation. Each state has its own rules about when a school district is considered significantly disproportional. For example:
When the state education authority finds that a local educational agency (LEA) (a school district or charter school) is identified as significantly disproportionate, the LEA must reserve 15 percent of its 611 and 619 IDEA grant funds to provide Comprehensive Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CCEIS) to students (age 3-18) in the LEA, particularly, but not exclusively, children in those groups that were significantly over-identified who need additional academic and behavioral supports.
In California, many LEAs were identified as having significant disproportionality, year after year. Technical assistance is offered to support improvement plans.
There is underrepresentation of some racial groups in special education as a whole. This may be related to Child Find, where teachers and parents exercise hidden biases when they refer children to be assessed for an IEP.
There is overrepresentation of certain groups in special education. We see this especially in certain disability eligibility categories. For example, we often find African American boys more often identified as having emotional disturbance. We also find disproportionate identification of African Americans in the ID disability category. There may be disproportionate identification of girls and boys in autism eligibility. And when it comes to placement, there’s also a big difference in where kids learn. Data shows that more than half of White students with disabilities spend most of their school day (80% or more) in a general education classroom, but for African American students with disabilities, only about one in three gets that much time included with their peers. Hispanic and American Indian students with disabilities are also more likely to be taught in separate classrooms instead of learning alongside their classmates. You can find more information on this data in this report by the National Center for Learning Disabilities.
Not collecting this data only serves to hide the reality of segregation and bias. Without clear disclosure about changes to the methodology, “the public loses the ability to understand whether changes in significant disproportionality over time are due to changes in methodology or genuine improved policies and practices to reduce the significance of race as a factor in the identification of children in special education, in their educational placement (inclusion in the regular classroom with their peers or placed in contained classrooms and segregated), or discipline practices such as suspension and expulsion,” a coalition of 11 education groups have written in opposition to the proposal.
While celebrating the 50th Anniversary of IDEA, it is worth remembering that the movement for special education emerged from the racial desegregation of schools in the 1950s and ‘60s, leading to the recognition that students with disabilities also had an equal right to a public education. However, segregation in special education classrooms could also be used as a hidden excuse for resegregation.
The closure of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) looms closer, even though many of the employees who were fired during the shutdown have been rehired, per the court order.
On Nov. 18, 2025, the ED announced six interagency agreements (IAAs/MOUs) with other federal agencies, moving many K–12 and higher-education grant and program administration functions to the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, Interior and State. The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation and the OCR were NOT included in this reallocation of responsibilities, but this is widely believed to be the next move.
The background for this is repeated attempts by the administration to shut down the functions of the ED over the past year.
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