tified conditions but are never referred for special education assessment? And is referral to special education assessment associated with severity of the researcher-identified condition or some other factors?

• If students who present with the same researcher-identified condition are treated differently, how is access or lack of access to a variety of special education services associated with later levels of cognitive achievement and behavioral adjustment?

The data would have improved value if the following additional information were included:

• how long the family has lived in the United States;

• birth country of students, their parents, and their grandparents;

• language proficiency (in both English and native language);

• education level of parents;

• level of acculturation; and

• experiences with literacy artifacts and practices.

Analysis for this report of the effect of race/ethnicity on special education placement or outcomes was made more difficult because many research studies did not specify the racial/ethnic composition of the sample or had too few minority children to measure effects by race/ethnicity. The committee urges that research funded by the Department of Education using these or other data require the careful description of samples as well as differential effects, to the extent feasible, by race, ethnicity, limited English proficiency, socioeconomic status, and gender.