I am a speech-language pathologist and a special education researcher, and I support the changes proposed to the VDOE Guidance Document, which are themselves based on the thoroughly-researched JLARC report. I see comments which appear to fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of proposed language encouraging IEP teams to consider students' cultural background, language, and the innate bias of many standardized assessments. This guidance does not act as a barrier preventing racial and ethnic minorities from accessing necessary special education services, but rather acts as a safeguard against racist eligibility decisions.

Skiba and colleagues (2008), in a peer-reviewed publication titled "Achieving Equity in Special Education: History, Status, and Current Challenges," note that "...the disproportionate representation of minority students in special education programs has its roots in a long history of educational segregation and discrimination." Readers will note that Black children are particularly overrepresented in special education, particularly in the more subjective eligibility categories. Based on their 2006 data drawn from the US Department of Education, Black children are more than 3x more likely to be found eligible under the category of Intellectual Disability, and 2.25x more likely to be found eligible under the category of Emotional Disturbance. Clearly, Black children are not actually more likely to have Intellectual Disabilities or Emotional Disturbance, so we can observe how special education can be a racist institution in the absence of culturally-responsive eligibility decisions. These children may be separated from their peers and provided with instruction far below their potential due to misidentification, both of which are violations of their right to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE). Educators must consider culture, dialect, and assessment bias in order to protect students' FAPE. This has been regarded as best practice for longer than I've been certified, and our guidance documents must be updated to reflect this best practice.

I understand that non-practitioners may be wary of these changes. I will address some of the issues I've seen contested in previous comments:

• Cultural differences absolutely factor into assessment, as well they should. For example, in general American culture, eye contact is expected and polite. If a teacher were correcting a child, the child would be expected to look at the teacher. Aversion to eye contact may be regarded as rude (at best) or as a red flag for Autism. However, this is not true across all cultures. In some, making eye contact during a rebuke would be a sign of rudeness. Likewise, in general American culture, children are expected to initiate conversation with peers and adults, whereas other cultures strictly forbid children from initiating conversation with adults. In examples like these, failing to understand and consider cultural differences may lead to a typically-developing child from a minority cultural background to be incorrectly identified for special education, thus violating their FAPE.
• Dialectal differences must be considered in the eligibility decisions regarding speech and language disorders. Dialectal differences are not disorders. A language disorder occurs when children do not acquire language skills (i.e., phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics) as readily as their language-typical peers. This makes it more difficult for them to express themselves or understand others. However, dialectal differences are separate issues. If a child is raised in a community which uses nonstandard English features (e.g., omitting certain tense endings, or using atypical syntax like "He got no idea,") then their way of speaking does not indicate a disorder. They learn language perfectly fine, they just learn a different variation of the language. These children should not be placed in special education, because they do not have a language disorder. However, culturally-insensitive assessment practices may mark students' dialectal variations as errors, and yes, these errors could add up to a difference of 2+ Standard Deviations. Further, an IEP team that does not know the difference between dialect and disorder may find this student eligible for special education services, despite the absence of a disorder. Certainly, a child may have both a dialectal difference and a language disorder. That is why it's important to use culturally-responsive assessment practices. The IEP team should work with parents to identify which "errors" simply reflect how the child's community speaks, and which errors are indeed representative of a language-learning disorder. Children with dialectal differences will not be excluded from special education if they do indeed have a language disorder, but they must be protected from special education if they do not.
• Standardized assessments often carry racial and cultural bias, and failing to consider this bias may lead to overrepresentation of minorities in special education. In addition to the example of language assessments being used to inappropriately diagnose dialectal differences as a disorder, there are plenty more examples of how this bias manifests. Standard scores are used as a comparison to the "average" child, but the norming samples of most assessments do not actually reflect the average child. They often reflect convenience samples, which are often White children from White communities near universities- not a representative sample of how diverse children may respond. Further, there can be bias innate within the assessment itself. I've seen old assessments which measured intelligence by asking the child how to operate a payphone. While at the time, that might have been a reasonable question for a child growing up in a normal culture, a child moving from an underdeveloped country may not have known anything about payphones. That doesn't mean that they have a learning disorder, they just didn't have the requisite cultural exposure. I've personally administered a test which measures social pragmatic interaction with a question worded like "Johnny wants to invite Mike to his birthday party. What are three things Johnny needs to tell Mike?" The "correct" responses include things like the date, time, and location of the party. However, I've heard of children from rougher areas responding with answers like "Don't bring any weapons." That response would be marked incorrectly if the test administrator didn't use their subjective judgment to consider the student's cultural background, but doesn't indicate a disorder at all if that is an appropriate concern in that child's community. These are just a few examples of why it's important for IEP teams to consider test bias in determining whether standardized scores actually reflect students' performance and ability.
• Several commenters are asking for research supporting the claim that cultural and linguistic differences may impact scores by up to 35 standard score points. A quick Google search pointed me to this publication: Ortiz, S. (2005). The Culture-Language Test Classifications (C-Ltc) And Culture-Language Interpretive Matrix (C-LIM). New York: St Johns University. I haven't read this particular publication, but based on my experiences described above, I have no doubt that cultural and linguistic differences can have such a dramatic impact. This is why test examiners need to be mindful of the bias of standardized assessments.

Despite these examples of why the Guidance Document needs language encouraging culturally-responsive assessment practices, I still understand the concerns of those who fear that this will be used to keep students out of special education services. However, that hasn't been my experience, and research like that of Skiba and colleagues suggest that this is the opposite of what happens in reality. I am more concerned about students placed in special education who do not require it. Special education isn't an opportunity for lower-achieving students to receive extra help, it's an opportunity for students with disabilities to receive the services they need to access their educational potential. Putting students without disabilities into special education is not only a violation of FAPE, but it is a disservice to the student. There are plenty of other opportunities for lower-achieving students to receive the support that they need, but it does more harm than good to give them an unwarranted label, separate them from their typically-developing peers, and hobble them with a curriculum that prevents them from reaching their full potential.

I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to keep children out of special education - at least not in my experience in several schools and districts. If anything, educators have (in my experience) been quick to refer a child to special education, even when the child doesn't have a disability, in order to "pass the buck" to someone else. Instead, educators need to do their due diligence to provide appropriate instruction in the least restrictive environment (i.e., not special education). This proposed language isn't racist; it's anti-racist, because it encourages IEP teams to push past the entrenched racism of general American cultural norms and assessment tools, to make decisions that accurately determine a student's educational needs. Opponents of this guidance must remember that eligibility decisions are made by the IEP team, which includes parents. Indeed, my experience in Virginia is that parents often have the strongest voice on the IEP team. Parents will still have a voice in their child's placement, for better or for worse, but these changes will encourage educators to implement culturally-responsive assessment practices to help guide these placement decisions.