Nonprofits target misplacement of students of color in special education.

AN AMERICAN AND AN ISRAELI nonprofit education group have partnered to work with U.S. school districts in an effort to ensure that children of color are not mistakenly placed in special education.

The National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (NUA) and the Jerusalem-based International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential (ICELP) signed an agreement allowing NUA mentors to be trained in ICELP's research-based interventions, including the Learning Potential Assessment Device, a special assessment that gauges a student's reasoning and information processing skills rather than right-or-wrong answers.

"The process students use to get an answer is more important than whether they get the answer right or not," says NUA president Eric J. Cooper.

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Too often children of color who lack support at home--causing them to act out in class--are placed in special education programs by frustrated schools that misdiagnose them with learning disabilities or behavior disorders, when a shift in teaching tactics could keep those children in regular classrooms, says Cooper.

NUA and ICELP consultants will work with about 20 districts--including Birmingham, Ala.; Bridgeport, Conn.; and New York City--to train teachers in using the Learning Potential Assessment Device.

Cooper says the districts also will be trained in using the Center's "Instrumental Enrichment" techniques, a series of logic-oriented problems designed to improve thinking processes.

"It's basically learning as a series of developmental stages," he adds.

Cooper says the partnership will allow NUA to give teachers new tools to help children of color, including those who are legitimately diagnosed with learning or behavioral disorders, while boosting the Israeli nonprofit's U.S. presence.