Seven school districts in Rhode Island are labeling too many students of color with learning disabilities they may not have and placing them into special education, a problem that has sparked a federally required review by the state Education Department.

In Central Falls, Hispanic students are almost 10 times more likely to be labeled “mentally retarded” than their non-Hispanic peers.

Black students in Providence are five times more likely to be classified as “emotionally disturbed” than other students.

Native American students in South Kingstown are 16 times more likely to be categorized as “learning disabled” or “other health impaired,” a category that includes attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

East Greenwich, Narragansett, Newport and Woonsocket were also cited for disproportionately identifying black, Hispanic or Asian students with learning disabilities, according to state education officials, who have been meeting with district leaders to find out why.

Officials acknowledge that it is possible that certain districts may have higher numbers of students with learning disabilities for a variety of reasons, including lead poisoning or children coming to a district for services that might not be available elsewhere.

However, the statistical discrepancies found in the seven school districts are significant enough to indicate a larger problem, and are being analyzed by the Department of Education, which says it will help the districts correct the “over-identification” of minority students over the next two years.

The state review could spark districts to review the tests and procedures they use to evaluate students, to make sure they are culturally sensitive, something Providence Supt. Donnie Evans said he wants his district to do. Districts might also decide to reevaluate the individual education plans of hundreds of special education students. They could also require more training for teachers.

State education officials fear that some minority students have been incorrectly identified with learning disabilities, in particular mental retardation. When the state director of special education, Kenneth Swanson, was asked whether he believes this is happening, he replied, “Yes, I do. And that’s not one of the labels you can shake off.”

REFERRING TOO MANY students to special education in general is a statewide and national problem that needs to be addressed by an overhaul of the education system, Swanson said.

Special education has become a fix-all, educators say. In some cases, students having trouble learning to read, students acting out, and students with speech issues are being shuttled into special education instead of getting academic or behavioral help.

“We do recognize that there are all kinds of kids who are struggling learners,” Swanson said. “For a long time, special education has been the only game in town, so if [teachers] and students’ families want their children to get assistance, that has really been the only avenue to go down.”

There are many reasons why students of color might be incorrectly or hastily labeled with a learning disability, Swanson said. For example, cultural differences between minority students and a largely white teaching force could result in misunderstandings or conflicts, as indicated in a recent analysis by consultants of Providence’s special education system. Out of 10,159 classroom teachers in Rhode Island, just 277 identify themselves as minorities; 608 do not identify themselves, and 9,274 say they are white, according to the state Education Department.

Pressure from the federal education law No Child Left Behind, which mandates yearly testing of all students, and the 2004 reauthorization of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act, which requires states to report how many minorities are in special education, is pushing states to address the problem.

School districts must more effectively assess the needs of their students early on, Swanson said, reserving special education for the students it was designed for — children with concrete, diagnosable learning disabilities.

“It is important to understand that if you have a problem with reading, which is often the case, then you need to get assistance with reading,” said Vivian Stith-Williams, a student services specialist with the Virginia Department of Education, who has written about the high numbers of minority students referred to special education.

“Instead, what happens is that special education becomes a dumping ground for these instructional issues,” she said. “When we should be asking ‘How has this child been instructed?’ instead we look to ‘fix’ the child. We need to be looking at how to fix the system.”

Rhode Island has one of the highest percentages of students in special education in the country — about 19 percent, compared with a national average of about 14 percent. It costs far more to educate a special-education student — $22,893 a year, compared with $9,269 for a regular-education student in Rhode Island.

But the cost is not only financial. Incorrectly labeling students “mentally retarded” or “emotionally disturbed” can have a negative effect on their self-confidence, school performance and future life, educators say.

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT recently required states to track “disproportionality” and address it in a timely manner. This is the first year Rhode Island has monitored the issue, using complex mathematical formulas and statistics to determine whether a district is referring a suspiciously high number of minority students to special education.

The analysis flagged the seven districts as having too many minority students labeled with disabilities when compared with the district’s overall student populations and those of other similar districts.

East Greenwich and Narragansett were cited for placing about twice as many black students in special education as the statistical formula allows. Black students in Newport are almost five times as likely to be labeled “emotionally disturbed” as their peers. Hispanic students in Providence are almost six times more likely to be classified as “mentally retarded.”

In Central Falls, Hispanic students are about 12 times as likely as other students to be identified with a “speech language impairment,” an issue that could be linked to the high number of English language learners in that district and warrants further investigation. In addition, Hispanic students in Central Falls are almost eight times more likely to be categorized as “learning disabled.”

In Woonsocket, Asian students were classified as learning disabled at a higher rate — 1.66 times more often — than the statistical formula allows, but that finding could be skewed by a relatively small number of students, Swanson said.

Two Providence charter schools, Paul Cuffee and International Charter, also had significantly higher numbers of minority students in special education.

Swanson said the department has been examining policies and practices in the districts, which were notified of the problem in March and last month..

“Since we have received the disproportionality numbers, this has been a call to action for us, to look through the evaluations and figure out what is going on,” said Patricia Morris, Central Falls’ English as a Second Language director.

Swanson said the Education Department does not want to deprive students who need special education. “We’re trying to move more resources and expertise traditionally in the special-ed world into the general-education world,” Swanson said.

Federal rules mandate that districts that “over-identify” minority students must dedicate 15 percent of the federal money they receive annually for special education to “early intervening” services.

This broad category of interventions includes a change as simple as moving a student’s seat assignment to help him or her focus, to getting therapy for a student exhibiting behavior problems, or offering an extended school day to low-income students. (The state Education Department is recommending all districts set aside 15 percent for these services, but only the seven cited for “over-identification” are required to do so.)

For Providence, which receives about $6.4 million a year in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act money, it means almost $1 million will now flow from traditional special education to “early intervening” services this fall. It is unclear what impact, if any, this shift in money will have on special education services.

SOME SCHOOL leaders say socio-economic factors have more to do with “over-identification” than race.

“I view this as less of an issue of ethnicity than an issue of poverty,” said Newport Supt. John H. Abrogi, a former special-education teacher and director.

“For a lot of kids living in poverty, their lives are in turmoil,” Ambrogi said. “Many of them don’t have a quiet place to study at home and may be living with single parents who are stressed out themselves and don’t have the time to help them with homework at night.”

Ambrogi said low-income students might therefore struggle more in their studies or exhibit behaviors that trigger a referral to special education.

South Kingstown Supt. Robert A. Hicks said that since 1999, his district has reduced the number of minority students identified for special education, by trying to help struggling students at the first sign of trouble. However, he said the district needs to expand its efforts by better preparing regular-education teachers to more effectively reach students of varying abilities.

Hicks also said the high proportion of Native American students singled out by the state review is based on a relatively small number of students — about 28 Native American students identified as learning disabled and 16 labeled “other health impaired” out of 702 special-education students in South Kingstown.

This year, 144 South Kingstown students identified themselves as Native American. Districtwide there are about 3,800 students.

“With these numbers, 1, 2 or 3 students can change the risk ratio exponentially,” Hicks said.

Providence Supt. Donnie Evans said that his district needs to do a better job of helping low-income students compensate for the disadvantages many of them face when they start school. Some students start first grade without ever having seen a book, for example. About 19 percent of students in Providence are in special education and another 20 percent have language challenges, Evans said.

“They come to us behind and then they fall further behind,” Evans said. “More than 40 percent of our students are highly at risk for failure if we don’t intervene and intervene now.”

jjordan@projo.com