ABSTRACT
Students with disabilities (SWD) of color have been reported to be more likely to be primarily placed outside of US general education classrooms than SWD who are White. This has been inferred to occur due to systemic bias and attempts by schools to racially segregate students. Yet these inferences have largely been based on descriptive statistics not adjusted for alternative explanatory factors including between-group differences in exposure to socioeconomic disadvantage and relative severity of academic or behavioral impairments. We investigated whether SWD of color are more likely to be primarily placed outside of US general education classrooms between first and fifth grade in the ECLS-K: 2011. Our analyses were adjusted for alternative explanatory factors. Although SWD of color were more likely to experience restrictive special education placement in unadjusted analyses and, to a lesser degree, after accounting for socioeconomic disadvantage, experiencing significant academic or behavioral difficulties fully explained racial and ethnic disparities in special education placement. In other words, SWD who were ever primarily placed outside of US general education classrooms between 2011 and 2016 were more likely to display significant academic or behavioral difficulties, regardless of racial or ethnic identity.
