Overview

The Unteachables examines the overrepresentation of Black students in special education over the course of the twentieth century. As African American children integrated predominantly white schools, many were disproportionately labeled educable mentally retarded (EMR), learning disabled (LD), and emotionally behavioral disordered (EBD). Keith A. Mayes charts the evolution of disability categories and how these labels kept Black learners segregated in American classrooms. The civil rights and the educational disability rights movements, Mayes shows, have both collaborated and worked at cross-purposes since the beginning of school desegregation. Although special education ostensibly included children from all racial groups, educational disability rights advocates focused on the needs of white disabled students, while school systems used disability discourses to malign and marginalize Black students. Excavating the deep-seated racism embedded in both the public school system and public policy, The Unteachables explores the discriminatory labeling of Black students, and how it indelibly contributed to special education disproportionality, to student discipline and push-out practices, and to the school-to-prison pipeline effect.

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Keith A. Mayes is associate professor in African American and African studies and faculty affiliate in sociocultural studies in education at the University of Minnesota. He is author of Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African American Holiday Tradition. A seasoned playwright, Terrence Kidd uses his skill as a storyteller to bring life to any genre. He loves narrating nonfiction best, but Terry's engaged, informed, and warm tone illuminates everything from potboiler crime thrillers to romance. A longtime bartender, Terry now narrates from his home studio, punching and rolling, on Massachusetts's North Shore.

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