Corinne Rello-Anselmi, the deputy chief academic officer who oversees special education in the city,said the department has hired more providers in recent years so fewer students will need vouchers,and she emphasized that the numbers are already relatively small; the department issued about 9,300vouchers in the last school year. More broadly, a city spokesman said that the education departmenthad increased spending on special education by more than $1.1 billion over the past five years. Still,Ms. Rello-Anselmi acknowledged the challenges students in the city still face.The system, she said, is trying to align itself so that regardless of where a child goes to school, “oncethey’ve been identified as having a special need, that we’re able to work with that familycontinuously,” she said. “That is something that we have made a priority.”Speaking of T.J.’s case, she added, “We don’t want this experience to be what is currently happeningtoday.

s part of a process called Turning Five, education officials examine students who have known delays,as well as those who may have disabilities, to decide what services they need and what kind ofclassroom they should be placed in — should they be among general education students? Or in asmaller setting devoted to children with special needs?T.J.’s Turning Five evaluation said he needed speech therapy, though Kerrin said she was never told.When T.J. started kindergarten, in a general education classroom at Public School 233, the LangstonHughes School, in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, he received no services for his speech, she said.

The inequalities resulting from the disproportionate placement of students of color in specialeducation are unfortunate because IDEA was designed to increase the rights of students withdisabilities. The history of special education before and after the passage of IDEA reveals that thispolicy was meant to encourage equity. Before the enactment of IDEA, a few states passed lawsdesigned to protect the rights of students with special needs. However, after IDEA was enacted,all students were provided with this protection, and the mandate required six major principles tobe followed to ensure that all children with special needs would receive specialized services. Theseprinciples involved a zero reject model, an individualized education program, nondiscriminatoryevaluation, education in the least restrictive environment, procedural due process for parents andschools, and parental and student participation (if appropriate) in all aspects of the specialeducation process (Artiles et al., 2010).

On the other hand, failing toprovide special services to students who need them prevents pupils who have historically beenunderserved from gaining access to the programs that will help them succeed academically(Morgan & Farkas, 2018).Although placing students in special education has been found to benefit students with milddisabilities, it is frequently viewed as ineffective for many pupils, contributing to consequencesthat outweigh the advantages of receiving additional services (Dever, Raines, Dowdy, & Hostutler,

As opposed to an "equality-as-uniformity" position, a top-down orientation, "equality-as-equal-opportunity," a bottom-up perspective, means individuals and groups maintain their right to be considered of equal worth, even if they are different. Further, the principle of self-determination, of human agency is important here as well if people are to be the subjects of their lives rather than objects. If the perspectives of children with disabilities were important, for instance, schools would be compelled to introduce and support values that are often invisible or carry little weight.

I believe U.S. educators need to discuss in great depth the "dilemma of difference" (Minow, 1990). In this all-too-common scenario, if Lydia is different from others, she is the problem and the solution must focus on her. Instead, rather than the identified trait signifying and hence isolating her, I am arguing we must see the problem as being in large part socially constructed.

In fact, some have suggested that the creation of the institutional framework of special education has served "...to provide an education for 'normal' students unimpeded by students who are troublesome, in the widest possible sense" (Tomlinson, 1995, p. 127; see also, Biklen, 1992; Davis, 1995; Rhodes, 1995; Riddell, 1996). Lydia and I have felt the pain of those labels, of that kind of separation. While her rights to education have been upheld, perhaps

As I have written elsewhere (e.g., O'Brien, 1999; 2001), the school and I often disagree about what is "best" for Lydia, and it is impossible for me to take off my early childhood teacher educator hat when addressing her education. Lydia must come with me, and this year she has even participated toward the end of each meeting which is interesting and necessary as she ages, but also stressful because of her difficulties in understanding the nature of her disability, and, I believe, the power she rightly perceives the school people having. It's painful for me to watch her struggle to be brave and "grown up" as the school professionals talk about her "needs" and their plans for her education.

According to the 7thEdition of Ormrod and McDevitt’s Child Development and Education textbook, late adolescencemarks the stage of forming an identity, or how “older adolescents (ages 14-18) make progresstoward establishing a self-constructed definition of who they are, what they find important, whatthey believe, and what they plan to become '' (Ormrod and McDevitt, 2020). Identitydevelopment is crucial in the life of a teenager. And it is because of these identities that genderintersectionalities matter the most. If schools continue to silence talks about LGBTQ+individuals, many of its students who just started forming their own gender identities won’t beable to figure that out. Gleaning on his own personal experiences at his local charter school, Ngorecalls how students would attempt to form progressive alliances that not only recognizesLGBTQ+ people, but also provides a safe space where queer students can thrive,

ncreasingly, LGBTQ fam-ilies are involved in their children's education or interested in advocatingfor LGBTQ youth and do not always find schools supportive of their con-cerns. Given that same-sex marriage is now legal, schools need to be moreresponsive to this historic time for the growth-and public representation-of families who are either LGBTQ headed or actively involved in ensuringthat schools respectfully educate their LGBTQ children. Difficulties remainfor parents who may not he easily recognized as parents, whether they aresame-sex or appear to be racially or ethnically different from their children.As one gay male parent explains, "I still carry the adoption paper with mein my wallet just in case I'm ever stopped" (Wells, 2011, p. 167), knowingfull well that single men with children, especially gay men, are still cultur-ally suspect

Butjust over one-third of students reported that staff were present when studentsheard biased comments and staff did challenge those remarks. Students whoattended schools that intervened in anti-LGBTQ harassment and who alsohad supportive faculty reported better attendance rates and school success.Teachers in the Anoka-Hennepin district themselves recognized the problemwith the policy of neutrality imposed there, not only because of its intent tokeep them neutral but also because the extent of their necessary neutralitywas unclear. This lack of clarity, some argued, meant that many teacherswere overcautious in taking any action against homophobic bullying, won-dering, "Could I get fired for that?" (Wooledge, 2012). Anoka High Schoolteacher Mary Jo Merrick-Lockett explained, "If you can't talk about it inany context, which is how teachers interpret district policies, kids internal-ize that to mean that being gay must be so shameful and wrong .... Andthat has created a climate of fear and repression and harassment" (quoted inErdely, 2012)

While most LGBTQ youth flourish and learn to counter the homopho-bic challenges they face, and while it is important not only to focus onthe challenges but also to stress the strength and resiliency of all minorityyouth, it is also crucial to understand that the costs of homophobia and biasagainst gender nonconforming students, especially those contending withracism or other intersecting differences, can be very high. In February 2008,15-year-old Lawrence King, who was beginning to find recognition asLeticia with some peers, was murdered by a younger White student whohad been part of a group bullying him for most of the school year. King en-dured daily taunting.

TransgenJerstudents also may be concerned that they will be misrecognized as the gen-der they were known as formerly or that they will be misrecognizeJ as trans-gender when they instead want to be known by their chosen genJer. Forsome young people, a normative binary gender does not adequately expresstheir gender complexity, but for others, being recognized only as the gen-der they are is crucial. Schools need to take the occasion of learning aboutgender diversity to understand that the impact of thoughtful change goesbeyond particular situations.Gender complexity is as difficult to negotiate for researchers as it maybe for school professionals-students are increasingly innovative in the newformations of gender and self-identifications they use. As Greytak et al.(2013) found, such complications meant removing students from theirstudy's results because students' identification on forms confounded the re-searchers' expectations for categories.

particular relationship to one another? How are sexual identities also de-fined by intense relationships, desires that may not be acted upon? Howare attractions defined through ideas about gender, race, and class? In otherwords, as we think about making schools safer for sexual minorities, howdo we even begin to address important issues, for instance, whether racialharassment is part of homophobia?

For instance, a 14-year-old Florida student, who preferred not to share hissexual identity, was punished for wearing makeup to school (Sieczkowski,2013 ). The principal claimed the student was in violation of the dress code,but the dress code had no reference to makeup (Sieczkowski, 2013). Othersimilar situations, including a young woman wearing a suit (Esseks, 2010),a transgender student wanting to wear a dress (American Civil LibertiesUnion [ACLU], 2013), or simply cisgendered heterosexual students dressingin nonconforming ways,