Why Special Education Should be Cold to Charter Schools

From the AP this morning, "Special Needs Students Staying in Traditional Schools":

"The high cost of educating students with special needs is disproportionately falling on traditional public schools as other students increasingly opt for alternatives that aren't always readily open to those requiring special education."

Highlights:

- In Cleveland, the district has lost 41 percent of its students since 1996 while its proportion of students with special needs rose from 13.4 percent to 22.9 percent last year. In Milwaukee, enrollment has dropped by nearly 19 percent over the past decade, but the percentage of students with disabilities has risen from 15.8 percent in 2002 to 19.7 percent in 2012.

- The U.S. Department of Education's office of civil rights is investigating charter school practices relating to students with disabilities in five districts around the country.

- While the number of students with special needs has not increased, the rising proportion has driven up costs for cash-strapped schools.

- Public Schools of Philadelphia, for example, spent $9,100 per regular education pupil in 2009, $14,560 per pupil with milder disabilities and $39,130 for more severe disabilities

- As districts increasingly offer other options, kids with disabilities are not enrolling in the alternatives at the same rate. (NB: This seems poorly worded, as if the students are the ones making the decision NOT to enroll.  When politicians support "school choice," we should ask them "who's choice?" - JW)

- Many charters have been reluctant to tackle special education because they lack expertise, but that is starting to change.


There may be a place for charter schools in the public education system.  But what is trending right now across the country is that public money is being transferred from public schools to private schools that do not have either the capacity or the cash incentive to provide appropriate education to students with disabilities.   Therefore, the per pupil financial burdens on urban public schools is increasing rapidly while their funds are being depleted. 

Even charter schools that do educate students with disabilities are not held to the same standards as public schools.  Their teachers often do not have the necessary training or experience as public (read: unionized) teachers, and their schools do not have to operate under the same "zero reject" principles that public schools have to.  (Although federal law prohibits charter schools from rejecting a student because of a disability, many of them have certain stated student minimum requirements that prevents many students with disabilities from enrolling.) 

I believe the appropriate phrase for this is "resegregation."