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1. "Another difficulty facing practitioners in distinguishing linguistic difference from disability, particularly a learning disability (LD), is the tendency for both students identified as ELLs and students identified with LD to perform poorly on academic tasks with high language demands, which may make ELLs even more vulnerable to misclassification as having a disability" (Sullivan, pg. 320).

2. I think that this passage brings to light many considerations that aren't originally made in regards to ELL students. It also presents many factors that educators and others may not consider in terms of ELL student evaluation and placement. In the quote I selected in particular, it is clear that many ELL students are listed as having a learning disability when in reality this isn't the case. Providing misdiagnosis to students can cause more harm than help to them. People have to know the difference. This makes me consider the students in my school. Many times I see some of my students IEP's and believe that their classification is incorrect. This text makes me realize that there is a possibility that my students have the wrong classification.

3. Implications for my work include speaking up when I notice that there may be a service that my students require. Students need an advocate to help them get the resources that they need. Without help and resources, students aren't able to perform to their greatest potential.

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Sullivan Article                      "This study, coupled with emerging research that indicates that many ELL's may be inappropriately identified for special education without adequate consideration of disability eligibility criteria or the influence of cultural, linguistic, or experiential factors, is a cause for concern." (Sullivan 2011). This statement made a profound impact on me because we are doing a disservice to our student population by mislabeling and providing them with inadequate or unnecessary services. It would be best practice to implement a protocol for identifying those ELL's with LD's who truly need the services and allocating it accordingly. Placement of students in education environments that do not promote growth will hinder their abilities, not only have a negative effect on themselves but to an extent other classmates. Creating learning communities that are optimal I believe is critical in ensuring that all students benefit. If you are not providing the proper service, for example SETTS, for a student who needs it, then he or she will fall far behind and it will be harder to catch up in later grades. I feel that a lack of knowledge on behalf of the educator and administration is partially to blame for these occurrences and actions must be taken to correct.

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Sullivan Article                      "This study, coupled with emerging research that indicates that many ELL's may be inappropriately identified for special education without adequate consideration of disability eligibility criteria or the influence of cultural, linguistic, or experiential factors, is a cause for concern." (Sullivan 2011). This statement made a profound impact on me because we are doing a disservice to our student population by mislabeling and providing them with inadequate or unnecessary services. It would be best practice to implement a protocol for identifying those ELL's with LD's who truly need the services and allocating it accordingly. Placement of students in education environments that do not promote growth will hinder their abilities, not only have a negative effect on themselves but to an extent other classmates. Creating learning communities that are optimal I believe is critical in ensuring that all students benefit. If you are not providing the proper service, for example SETTS, for a student who needs it, then he or she will fall far behind and it will be harder to catch up in later grades. I feel that a lack of knowledge on behalf of the educator and administration is partially to blame for these occurrences and actions must be taken to correct.

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. "Additionally, result from one urban southwestern U.S. district showed that students identified as ELLS were over represented in MIMR, SLD and SLI at rate more than twice of their white peers and they are subjected to substantially more restrictive placements"(Sullivan, 2011). The premise of that statement is that ELL students face racial disproportionality in the current educational system, as a result, these students are increasingly being identified as having mental retardation or learning disabilities and are less likely to be serviced in the least restrictive environment when compare to their white counterparts. Learning a new language takes time for most people. It is normal for our ELLS to take many years to adapt to a new culture and become proficient in English. We should not think or label out students deficient because they are not yet proficient in English. We must also consider that it is normal for students to be silent in class when they are new or it could be that in their culture that is the appropriate behavior. Many ELLS miss access to rigorous curriculum and diminished expectations as well as a false impression of their intelligence because they are mislabeled. Students in a restrictive classroom environment are often socially stigmatized and as the article suggests can contribute to substantial racial separation As educators we need to have a call for action to implement some corrective plans to reduce the disproportionalities that our ELLs encounter. all students including ELLs deserve an appropriate education that meets their needs and allows for their future success.

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Response to Sullivan article: 1. "Results are particularly dire for students identified as ELLs, who have among the highest grade retention and dropout rates of all youth (Duran, 2008). Other societal and systemic factors further shape these students' experiences: these factors include English-only legislation, the availability of language supports, and the widespread shortage of bilingual practitioners." I think this quote highlights the urgency of making sure ELL students are properly assessed by trained teachers and that the appropriate supports and services are provided to them. Otherwise, given the lack of services and the rate of retention and drop outs, it would seem that not providing ELL students with the appropriate services and teachers is effectively denying them a FAPE. The school I work in offers bilingual core classes for students identified as ELLs. This seems to be a good support and our ELL students did very well academically last year with many long-term ELL students testing out. What I do see in my ICT and self-contained classes are many ELL students who also have an LD classification on their IEP but which does not indicate how their LD manifests and affects their ability to learn. The IEP usually reflects that the student has performed poorly on tests and in school and that reading levels are low. What I see when working with these students is that they are poor readers which effects their ability to do well in their classes and on state examinations. I think this may be attributed to the fact that they are ELL students or former ELLs whose first language is not English. I think an important step at my school would be for the bilingual team and the special education team to work together to learn to properly assess ELL students who also need special education services and supports due to a disability to ensure that students are placed in the least restrictive environment with the appropriate supports.

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According to Sullivan (2011), “the disproportionate representation of CLD [Culturally and Linguistically Diverse] students in special education is a long-standing issue first introduced in the literature more than 40 years ago…  twice studied by the National Research Council... And frequently examined in the scholarly literature” (p. 318). This fascinated me since I have no experience with ELLs, I had no idea that the same disproportionate placement as SPED students is occurring to ELLs. The only discussion I had since I began teaching Special Education was about the overrepresentation of students that are labeled as SPED. My school places ELLs in a separate location with a licensed teacher, however, I personally would like to inquire about the screening process that occurs in my school.

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"In the 1980's, the Handicapped Minority Research Institutes in California and Texas reported that Latino children of foreign-born parents were more likely to be identified as disabled , especially when tested in English, and that the referral and eligibility reasons were often related to language proficiency" This quote attracted me for a number of different reasons. My first reaction is that it is an assumption that because you have foreign born parents that you will struggle with the English language.  With technology today, many foreign born individuals have access to learning our native language through many modalities. Also some immigrants have lived here enough time to become proficient in the English language which would allow them to speak it in the homes where children will grow up having a good command of the English language. What I have notice is that when parent prefer to receive their school information in Spanish, their child is automatically flagged as a student who may fit into the ELL category. I think that this has a huge impact on the number of students that get improperly labelled as an ELL student. Interestingly enough many students who are born to Russian or European immigrants are not immediately labelled in the same manner. Last year I had two ELL students in my classroom who excelled in ELA, although their parents were foreign born, they were still able to access the curriculum successfully. There needs to be a streamlined process of identify and placing students.

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"Results are particularly dire for students identified as ELLs, who have among the highest dropout rates of all youth...the field continues to struggle with uncertainty regarding how to best provide instruction and access to English language curriculum and an unclear role of special education in remediating learning difficulties."
This quote stuck out to me in particular because I think it highlights the consequences of not having educators that are trained to address the needs of students that are both ELLs and SpEd. Given that so many ELLs are placed in SpEd settings when they do not have a reason to be there, I can only imagine is connected to the high dropout rates; the children's learning needs are not being met by their present setting. With this being said, if a child is both an ELL and SpEd, there must be collaboration between the ENL and SpEd educators to best service those children. If we want to stop the high drop out rates of these children, we have got to do more to ensure we are meeting their learning needs and have trained educators that can address the needs of their students.
My school has both TBE and ENL classes so we do offer a lot of support for ELL students. Last year I had three ELLs in my class and they were only pulled for services around the time to take the state tests. I hope this year our school figures out a way to give these particular students some support or at least allows more time for planning with the ENL team.

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"The disproportionate representation of CLD students in special education has been a persistent problem, but limited research exists pertaining to students identified as ELLs" . Even though short, almost unnoticeable, I find this to be a powerful passage. We live in a country with a great influx of immigrants, ELL population is growing constantly and yet little research has been done on how to help our students. The disproportionate representation, whether over, or under, is an indication that we really don't know what we are really doing. This article was written in 2011, seven years is not a long time ago for research, as a result I can only say that the people in charge are indifferent to the issue. It makes me wonder whether the people in charge of my district are able to assist my school's population.
With little research done, I am not quite sure how decisions can be made about my students that can affect negatively many lives. For example, I have an ELL student named Enmanuel that has an IEP, yet, he is very smart, able to pay attention, and his only problem is that he is going through the silent phase since he moved here one year ago; yet he is stigmatized, and I HATE to say it, but having an IEP is a stigma. So, my question is this, how can I trust that the people in charge have the best interest at heart, and are trying their best to help our students when they do not invest in proper research?

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"The disproportionate representation of CLD students in special education is a long-standing issue first introduced in the literature more than 40 years ago (Dunn,1968), twice studied by the National Research Council, and frequently examined in the scholarly literature.  Not only does the disproportionality exits in special education identification, but in placement decisions, disciplinary consequences, academic  performance and exiting from special education services." Sullivan, pg. 318). This quote stood out to me because as a special education teacher, at first I didn't know that special education has been in the education system for years and educators are still trying to find ways to better the craft of special education. Teachers in general are always learning how to do things and better the craft of teaching. This is a job that you are constantly learning and finding better ways to service both ENL students and SPED students. I really enjoyed reading this article and other article  like this because it gives me information that was brought years ago, but its still very useful for me to use as a teacher today. Now that I have a better understanding of ENL and Special Education, Im going to pay more attention to my ENL students and observe them more. I want to make sure that my students are getting the appropriate services for their education.

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1.  “Districts with high proportions of teacher with ESL certification were more likely to place students identified as ELLs in the least restrictive environment” (Sullivan, 2011, pg. 325).
2. A connection I can make to my current practice is that considering the huge population of ELLs and bilingual students in my school,  there is only a handful of teachers with the proper training to address the needs of these students.  This puts ELL and bilingual students at an unfair disadvantage.  In my ICT classroom last year, many ELLs where placed in the classroom because, in addition to being the special education teacher, I am bilingual.  Although there is a better solution than no solution, I was ill-equipped to support these students in the classroom beyond ensuring that when possible documents and presentation translated to Spanish and the students were paired with a bilingual student with more mastery of the language.
3. What this might imply for my work is that I have to be extremely careful and sensitive to the fact that students acquiring a new language and struggling in literacy for example, don’t necessarily have a learning disability.  Also, I might have students with IEPs that might not necessarily have learning disability and where incorrectly assessed because their language acquisition and cultural needs were not appropriately considered.  I also feel compelled to explorer additional training in bilingual and special education because of the lack of properly trained professionals.

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Students may miss out on needed services and support when educators assume that their difficulties are solely due to emerging english proficiency or when districts only allow for students to be categorized as either ELL or as having a disability, but not as both simultaneously
( Sullivan,2011) This part in the passage highlighted the lack of services that are given to students based on assumptions. Students are losing out on the proper educational services that can be provided due to federal laws not addressing our ELL students. It is even more of a disadvantage for ELL students as well as teachers who do not have the proper training to differentiation or scaffold the needs or our students. The connection to this and what i see in my own school is ELL students do not have the proper support that is needed to support their language barrier. How can you categorize a student based off of an assumption without testing all expects of their learning ability to ensure their are not other gaps that would prevent them from becoming successful through their school year.? Students are placed with classifications that do not fit their needs based of of a language barrier. As stated in the article few school systems have adequate mechanism in place to collect identification, placement or outcome date for students identified as ELL in special education.

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Not only does disproportionality exist in special education identification, but in placement decisions, disciplinary consequences, academic performance, and exiting from special education services. For a field built on the principle of fairness, formed in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, and grounded in the rhetoric of the civil rights movement, ongoing disproportionality strongly indicates systemic problems of inequity, prejudice, and marginalization within the education system.

I believe this excerpt isn’t as symptomatic of issues within special education, or education in general, but it reflects upon our society as a whole. I don’t wish to proselytize, but the problems with disproportionality reflect within the society as a whole and are not isolated to our chosen profession. While identification is an important first step to solving a problem, I believe we are faced with a chicken and the egg situation. Does this exist because of how we see ourselves in the greater community, or has the community groupthink created a cycle that starts in school.

With our vantage point in the classroom, we hold keys that will impact the trajectory of our students’ lives. Last year, two of my students were determined to no longer require special education services, and a third would be reconsidered to determine whether she still required services. I believe that we must remain cognizant and vigilant as to not only what our students need from us, but remember why they may or may not need us.

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1. “It is necessary to investigate the extent to which language support, preservice training, and professional development contribute to identification and placement and patterns of disproportionality at various levels of educational systems, given the potential effect of these factor on students’ educational experiences.” (330)              2. I found this passage interesting as I work at a school that consist of 95% ELLs but only 15% SPED population. What I’ve found is that teachers at my school identify students as potentially in need of special education services through the referral program as those with difficult classroom behaviors or have been in this country over two years and do not manage to progress in English language acquisition. While I feel my school offers many professional development sessions and resources to support our ELL population, they fall short for students with disabilities.                   3. I feel the implications of this research is that there needs to be more training and culturally responsive practices among school psychologists, teachers, and related services providers to best ensure that student with English language difficulties are not improperly being diagnosed with learning disabilities. 

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1. “It is necessary to investigate the extent to which language support, preservice training, and professional development contribute to identification and placement and patterns of disproportionality at various levels of educational systems, given the potential effect of these factor on students’ educational experiences.” (330)              2. I found this passage interesting as I work at a school that consist of 95% ELLs but only 15% SPED population. What I’ve found is that teachers at my school identify students as potentially in need of special education services through the referral program as those with difficult classroom behaviors or have been in this country over two years and do not manage to progress in English language acquisition. While I feel my school offers many professional development sessions and resources to support our ELL population, they fall short for students with disabilities.                   3. I feel the implications of this research is that there needs to be more training and culturally responsive practices among school psychologists, teachers, and related services providers to best ensure that student with English language difficulties are not improperly being diagnosed with learning disabilities. 

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1. "As a result of such delays and difficulties, ELL students are at risk of inappropriate services because of both misidentification and failure to be identified. For the former group, the potential detrimental effects of special education labels are concerning; whereas for the latter, the consequences of delayed intervention are problematic because of the compounded difficulty in overcoming learning problem"  (Sullivan, 2011, pg. 320).  This quote opened my eyes because it shows the importance of digging deeper and providing ELL's with the proper assessment to avoid misidentification and or inappropriate services. It makes me reflect on my practice as a special education teacher and how I can distinguish ELL's from ELLSE.
2. I appreciated the information and the research in the article. While reading the article I reflected on one of my students who is an ELLSE. I can honestly say that as a first year teacher, I had difficulty to deliver quality instruction to this student due to the language barrier and the lack of guidance when educating ELL's. It is very ironic that this past Tuesday my principal discussed the vast majority of black and brown boys who are referred for special education services and how teachers must specifically target these group of students through mentorship and tutoring to break the stigma of underperformance.
3. What implications I can make by reading this article is making effort to collaborate with the ESL teacher to provide quality instruction. I also believe that more training is required to better prepare teachers to educate culturally and linguistically diverse students.

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“A somewhat paradoxical pattern of overrepresentation and underrepresentation seems to exist in United states, presumably because both underrefferral and overdiagnosis occur because of misunderstanding of the educational needs of students identified as ELLs, poorly designed language assessments and weak psychoeducational assessments practices.”

I think this quote highlights a big problem we are facing in the education system today, the lack of training and understanding on how to support/provide services for ELL students. This brings me great disappointment and also frustration because I continue to see the acknowledgement of the problem. However, nothing seems to change. Many studies, research and articles all continue to say that ELL students are being disservice by being incorrectly placed in services, misdiagnosed with learning disability and their educators are not properly trained in how to provide interventions or assess. I find this a bit appalling because, there are federal laws put in place protecting these students’ rights to a fair and proper education that includes appropriate services.  Student data also continues to be reflective of these deficiencies and ineffectiveness in which these students are not reaching their highest potential. The education system is failing our students. My own experience, proves this to be right. I started working as special education teacher, after only two half months of training, which was not fully on servicing students with disabilities. I was and, in some ways, continue to lack sufficient training and knowledge in my specialty. Knowing this about myself and the problems in the education system. Its more important than ever, that I take all necessary action in ensuring that overrepresentation and underrepresentation changes. Even if it starts with me continuing to fully understand my role, my responsibilities, receiving adequate training and education on services, assessments and disabilities. Also, bring awareness to my team and school as well as a sense urgency in this matter. I think if educators start to take more accountability by taking the extra necessary steps with support of administration, we can really improve the learning experience and success of ELL students.

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1.Additional analysis are needed to understand the factors that contribute to patterns of disproportionality. More sophisticated methodologies and research designs are needed to understand the relationships and interactions among student factors, practices, and local contextual and structural, and systemic factors as they contribute to disparate opportunities for and treatments identified as ELLs, and how this contributes to inappropriate identification and placement in special education.  (Sullivan pg 320). 

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1.Additional analysis are needed to understand the factors that contribute to patterns of disproportionality. More sophisticated methodologies and research designs are needed to understand the relationships and interactions among student factors, practices, and local contextual and structural, and systemic factors as they contribute to disparate opportunities for and treatments identified as ELLs, and how this contributes to inappropriate identification and placement in special education.  (Sullivan pg 320). 

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2. Reading through the Sullivan article and coming across this paragraph I had to stop and wonder how uninformed are the administrators making decisions about the future of our students or they just do not care because it is not their children who are negatively affected by the NYCDOE. It was basically acknowledged that a disservice is being done to our ELL students as well as our minority students. This paragraph has a focus but the truth is it speaks to a socio-economic demographic that is at a tremendous disadvantage in our society with an inadequate education and resources we fail to provide.

The implications this has on my personal approach to teaching is just continue to do what i have been doing and thats finding unique ways to engage students and ensuring differentiation benefits my students. It requires and energy and effort many people are not built for.

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Antonio Worrell- Sullivan Response-"For a field built on the principle of fairness, formed in the wake of Brown vs Board of Education and grounded in the rhetoric of the civil rights movement, ongoing disproportionality strongly indicates systemic problems of inequality, prejudice, and marginalization within the education system" (Sullivan, 2011). This statement resonates with me on both a personal and professional level. I have always been an advocate for equal rights and opportunities for students of color and now for students with disabilities. Although we have made strides for equality it is very disheartening to witness and live the disproportionality at the hands of personal prejudices and implicit biases. For the foundation of fairness to be crippled within the education system for the reason and lack of education or culturally responsive awareness shows that we are not fully supporting our students who are classified as CLD, ELLSE, ELL or just classified as having a LD. We need to continue to reach out into the communities of our students to help build a team of support to over come language and cultural barriers when we notice that our core group of teachers are not qualified to support their needs. We need to find away to get the same funding into inner city schools to so they can adequately educate our students as the ruling of Brown vs Board of Education intended. The role I see myself playing in order to make this happen is to not allow inadequate support to be the cause of my students failure. To go beyond what is needed to support my student.Reach out to community leaders and make them aware of the barriers to gain support. request more bilingual teachers that speak other languages besides English and Spanish so other populations needs can me met as well as a small example.

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The disproportionate representation of CLD students in special education has been a persistent problem, but limited research exists pertaining to students identified as ELLs" There seems to me to be this very strange divide between ELLs and special education. I believe that the two are much more related than it seems and do not understand why it is viewed so separately. It bothers me that there is little research done on one while the other has endless. The two domains seems to go hand in hand and should be treated similarly, both types of students need additional support so why separate them so much administratively
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"Results are particularly dire for students identified as ELLs, who have among the highest dropout rates of all youth...the field continues to struggle with uncertainty regarding how to best provide instruction and access to English language curriculum and an unclear role of special education in remediating learning difficulties.

This quote stuck out to me because it saddens me that something as simple as speaking a different language has put so many children in a position of academic struggle. A struggle so great that they are opting to leave school rather that to complete their education in a environment that seems to be geared at holding them back

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“...the literature suggest that students identified as ELLs begin receiving special education services 2 to 3 years later than average for students who are English- proficent.” ((Wagner, Francis & Morris, 2005( Sullivan, 2011 p320). I feel so strongly about this quote because it is a clear example of how the American education system is failing so many children. ELLs are typically children who already are at a disadvantage due to language barriers. To add a disability on top of that yet delay the much needed services is criminal. The delay in services can potentially decrease opportunity to succeed. Is education about money or about making sure that students reach their full potential? If a student has correctly been diagnosed as having a learning disability yet they are an ELL there should measures in place to address the child’s learning disability while assisting them in learning English in a timely manner. Why is the ability to speak multiple languages not valued; not seen as an asset?  As a district, I feel that district 11 does a good job of actively screening children for special education and ELL services. Within my school, students who are new to the country are immediately assess by our ENL teacher. She is looking for basic discrepancies in both the native language and English. She does an effective job in determining LD but her ability to assist Sped teachers past placement is limited. As a teacher who is very passionate about helping students reaching their potential, I gather as many resources on my own as I can to assist my students. We as a community try our best to ensure that students get the services they need as soon as possible once they are in our schools.

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“Given the high proportion of ELLs who struggle academically, it is unlikely that most have educational disabilities; instead, it is necessary to effectively distinguish the sources of students’ difficulties by examining the interaction among structural forces, learning conditions, and learner characteristics.” (Sullivan, 2011) This quote and passage highlight the disproportional placements of ELL students in special education. Educational policies are restricted and reduced proper services for ELL students. It may be that schools are reacting to this by classifying students for special education services in order to provide them with additional support within or outside of the classroom but these services are not targeting their language acquisition needs. The quote I choose showed the shift we need to make as educators around how to solve the problem. We cannot blame the child for not making progress in learning English if we are not providing the proper instructional strategies and support. As educators we need to look at the bigger picture and ask if the system is working in the favor of ELL students. As we can see it is not so we need to advocate for better training and assessments in order to be equip with the proper tools to teach ELLs.

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1. "Conversely, students may miss out on needed services and supports when educators assume that their difficulties are solely due to emerging English proficiency (Limbos&Geva, 2001) or when districts only allow for students to be categorized as either ELL or as having a disability, but not as both simultaneously (Lesaux, 2006)"

2. It wasn’t until this semester that I actually realized the difficulty this has caused ELL students. Last year I had one ELL student in my class. She wasn’t quite in the emerging stage as of yet however, she had an IEP. Because she was a SPED student, it was a requirement to have her in a SPED class instead of an ELL class. I feel like ELL teachers should be required to be dually certified with SPED that way students are receiving all of their services and able to access all material. Ofcourse, it is the SPED teacher’s job to differentiate any way possible to better serve students whether ELL or not but SPED teacher’s don’t always have the amount of training and background that ELL teacher’s have. It was really difficult for me to work this students, especially because I didn’t speak her native language.

3. This is exactly what I see at my job. ELL students aren’t receiving all of the necessary services in order for them to progress and move on to the next phase of mastery.

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See all the wonderful things John Daly has made

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Level 1: “Given the high proportion of ELLs who struggle academically, it is unlikely that most have educational disabilities; instead, it is necessary to effectively distinguish the sources of students' difficulties by examining the interaction among structural forces, learning Exceptional Children 3 2 9 conditions, and learner characteristics (Lesaux, 2006). It is necessary to investigate the extent to which language support, preservice training, and professional development contribute to identification and placement and patterns of disproportionality at various levels of educational systems, given the potential effect of these factors on students' educational experiences” (Sullivan p.329)

Level 2: I chose this quote because it embodies a value of which I am always reminding my coworkers of in regards to ELLSE and SWD. We must always strive to remember that our students are not all one and the same. ELL's and SWD's are not one and the same all of the time and due to that we must ensure we are scaffolding and differentiating to the specific needs of the student. Too often I notice, even with myself, that there is an automatic attempt to provide the same scaffolds throughout the lesson for everyone. We do this because we think it will help when we are really putting our students at a disadvantage. Similarly as educators we need to keep in mind the foundational learning our student may already have, even if it may not be a triaidtional or academic understanding of something. Within the video from this same module the speaker mentions the use of an egg. Within school we might learn that an egg comes from a chicken and you can make scrambled eggs, but to the speaker the egg was a symbol of healing as her grandmother would rub it on her head in order to rid her of negative energy/spirits. These small understandings can change the way a child views their world as well as how they approach what they are reading or writing. It can change the context of an entire assignment.

Level 3: I myself am guilty of believing that the same interventions would work regardless of the need. Meaning that I had originally thought simply chunking a text and providing translations was enough. I believed that sentence frames created dependency on the teachers and not autonomy in the student and I was horribly wrong. When I changed my approach and outlook after understanding the unique differences between my ELLSE, IEP, and ELLSE with IEP I became better able to assist in their unique needs. From that point I noted a small increase in ability to access the content as well as an increased interest in lessons.