MIM Notes 189 July 1 1999

INCREASE IN SPECIAL ED STUDENTS IN LOS ANGELES:
"EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED" OR DISCONTENTED AND REBELLIOUS?

Over the last three years there has been a 13% increase in the 
number of special education students in the Los Angeles Unified 
School District--almost double the growth rate of the general 
school population. Los Angeles school officials say that a 
disproportionate number of Black children are being labeled 
"emotionally disturbed" and "learning disabled."(1)

The label "emotionally disturbed" covers up the structures that 
oppress children. The real problems are national oppression and 
racism, which are the basis of U.$. society. Materialists look at 
the real world, where bourgeois officials do not. We analyze the 
structures that oppress children in patriarchal capitalist 
society, weigh the options or lack thereof that they face, and 
disavow individual psyche or personality as causal factors.

Of the 15,784, mostly male, Black students in special education, 
651 have been classified as "emotionally disturbed" and 10,617 as 
learning disabled. Out of all the Black special education 
students, 17% are in for being "emotionally disturbed" or 
"learning disabled," compared to 14% of the total amount of white 
children who are in special education. Traditionally, white 
children having trouble in school might be carried along until 
they catch up, while Black children are quickly separated out and 
given IQ tests to pin them down in low success tracks.(3)

A special education designation can have long lasting effects on 
the students, who rarely shake off their designation to special 
education programs that they do not even need, or raise their 
academic skills to grade level. Los Angeles' special education 
programs are doing an effective job of denying nationally 
oppressed children the education they deserve.

In all there are about 76,670 (11%) special education students out 
of an entire district population of 697,000. Authorities contend 
that between 53,669 (7.7%) and 69,700 (10%) of the entire student 
population should be in special education These figures are still 
too high, because of the low social value of children under 
capitalist patriarchy. We will not be able to address possible 
real learning disabilities until we remove the system of nation, 
class and gender oppression, which creates a system of 
inequalities that deny humyn potential. 

The "emotionally disturbed" label is hypocritical in a settler 
society, where Black children are colonized in the ghettos and 
sham expectations are placed upon them to begin with. Poverty is a 
notorious "learning disability." The conditions of poverty and 
oppression cause untold damage to their victims, including damages 
to their physical and mental development, not to mention their 
overall health. 

Teachers in special education classes told the Times that they get 
a few kids with real problems, such as dyslexia, but they usually 
get kids who just can't read. "Their remedial problems become 
behavioral problems--not the other way around," said one teacher. 
Oppressed nationals who show signs of defiant behavior will be 
carted off to prison while whites and wimmin will wind up in 
mental institutions. Even though the students are a product of 
their social environment, they will be deemed incompatible with 
"normal" society.(4)

The cost of running special education programs, which even some 
bourgeois officials accuse of being designed for placement of 
children discarded by the system, has jumped from $584 million to 
$811 million. As per usual, the white nation government has found 
a way to use oppression as an excuse to throw around some goodies: 
Special education "reforms" created a new bureaucracy of middle 
level managers earning $64,741 to $80,740.

A class action lawsuit in 1993, filed on behalf of special-needs 
students, claimed that even students with legitimate learning 
disabilities were receiving a grossly inadequate education. The 
1996 settlement of that suit led the district to comply with 
federal and state laws to better identify and serve these 
children. A better alternative to such half measures is a 
socialist system whereby mutual cooperation brings about 
collective benefits of education.

Notes:
1. Los Angeles Times, 23 May 1999, A1. 
2. MIM Theory 9, "The Oppression of Children Under Patriarchy," p. 
14. 
3. MIM Theory 9, "IQ Against the Oppressed," p. 56. 
4. MIM Theory 9, "State Tyranny: Non-Profit Mental Institutions," 
p. 31.