In the Shadow of Brown Special Education and Overrepresentation of Students of Color written by Beth A. Ferri and David J. Connor  assert key points in the after math of the court decisions.  Sixty-four years later, after the decision  that segregation is to be deemed as harmful, schools remain to be as segregated as they ever were.  These are the unfulfilled promises of both landmark cases.  In Spanish we have a saying that describes this well, “el que hace la ley, hace la trampa.” 
The article continues to purport the problem of overrepresentation of minority students in special education classes.  The authors draw attention to the inappropriate placement and labeling of racial and linguistic minority students based on their performance on IQ test and other standardized test, criticizing them as biased.  Culturally and linguistic biased, and there fore these test are not valid.  Rather it is seen as a form of institutionalized racism. The report explains how the initial referral process begins with the teacher, who is most public schools are 90% White; whereas, 40% of the student population is of a racial minority.  
The Staff at my school consists of teachers, teacher assistants, principal, vice-principal, school psychologist, speech therapist, secretaries and nurse combined equals 50 people.  There is a fairly equal split of staff regarding teachers of color and White teachers. 
Consequently, because of the problem with overrepresentation of minority students in special education programs, there has been an increased effort not to identify as many students.  The number of students receiving services in the co-teach classrooms has been slowly dwindling over the last few years.  Does this mean students academic performance is increasing? No, our school is still labeled a ‘focus’ school due to low achievement on standardized testing known as PARCC.  This simply means the staff is finding creative ways for  working with the English language learners in program as well as out of program.  Also, there has been an attempt to redesign the standardized test, such as the interim assessment to be less culturally biased.  The characters in the story and the plot mimic some of the struggles students and their families share.  In other words, some students can see themselves reflected in the story line.   However, the wording of the questions are difficult and too ambiguous, so students still have a hard time answering the questions correctly.  
A suggestion the authors make that I find shocking is about the data on Hispanic students.  In the article, the authors impress that the data for Hispanics is complicated because on one hand they are underrepresented in elementary schools, but then overrepresented in high school.  They further suggest that they are more likely to be placed in self-contained, bilingual or English as a second language (ESL) classes and that these classes are overly restrictive and limit a student’s ability to gain access to the general education curriculum or to keep up with their grade-level peers.  First of all I do not agree with this statement.  In my understanding as an educator of Bilingual Education classes and as a former English language learner myself, students whose first language is not English versus their mono-lingual English counterparts is no comparison.  To begin, the bilingual or ESL classroom if properly run, using such techniques as “translanguaging” or allowing students to use their first language to make sense of acquiring the second language creates for a rich language environment full of learning opportunities.  Additionally, students access to knowledge is not being limited to only English.  That is limiting. The goal is to make input comprehensible using  their native language and the target language.  Studies have shown the many benefits to having a bilingual brain that operates with two or more language systems.  Placement in a bilingual or ESL classroom is neither overly restrictive or limits students.  It serves to enrich students and validate who and what they bring to the classroom.  
The article concluded by saying that we must learn from the history of Brown versus Board of Education and consider how certain practices serve to exclude students and that we should try to create a more inclusive future.  The practices of exclusion is due in part to the student population of Providence School District. For instance, currently, school-wide data taken from infoworks.ride.ri.gov shows a student population for 2016-2017 based on 88% of the students receive subsidized lunch, 43% receive ESL/Bilingual services, 12% receive special education services.  The student characteristics based on racial/ethnic background is as follows: 8% African-American, 1% Asian, 83% Hispanic, 2% Multi-cultural, 1% Native American, and 6% White.  With a combined population of African-American and Hispanic at 91% it is safe to assume that the majority of the students receiving special education services at the school are minority children.  Looking at the city-wide data it shows a student population of: 17% African-American, 5% Asian, 64% Hispanic, 4% Multiracial 1% Native American, and 9% White.  The state-wide data shows a student population of: 8% African-American, 3% Asian, 25% Hispanic. 4% multiracial, 1% Native American, and 59% White.  In my findings, the data shows that the majority of African-American and Hispanic students are highly concentrated in the Providence School District.  So unless there is going to be busing of students across city-limits, I do not see desegregation of Providence Schools as is stated in the Brown vs Board of Education.  https://youtu.be/nRz-l5nInvs