Special-Ed Problems Continue In District

WaPo ^ | 6-27-09 | Michael Bimbaum

[SoftballMominVA]

Some D.C. public charter schools continue selective admissions practices that discourage special-needs students from enrolling, and students citywide with possible disabilities still face delays in special education evaluations, a federal court monitor said this week.

"Charter schools . . . generally have not enrolled students with significant disabilities who required extensive hours of special services or education," the monitor, Amy Totenberg, wrote in a report prepared for a court hearing yesterday.

[SoftballMominVA]

So the charter schools pull out what would be the 'cream' and leave the most needy behind

Why can charter schools not be forced to take a representative sample of SpEd kids?

[edcoil]

“Special-Ed Problems Continue In District”

not another story about our congress

[SoftballMominVA]

Public Education Ping

This list is for intellectual discussion of articles and issues related to public education (including charter schools) from the preschool to university level. Items more appropriately placed on the “Naughty Teacher” list, “Another reason to Homeschool” list, or of a general public-school-bashing nature will not be pinged. If you would like to be on or off this list, please freepmail Amelia, Gabz, Shag377, or SoftballMominVa

[SilvieWaldorfMD]

Maryland Ping (SORT OF!!)

[2harddrive]

I would just say: “Problems continue in District!”

[AZLiberty]

Charter schools in Arizona, at least, are required to take SPED kids on the same basis as any other kids. The State of Arizona, however, does not provide any special funding for SPED students. If a district high school with 3000 kids takes in a half dozen SPED kids, they have a large population to amortize it over. If a charter school with 200 kids takes in a half a dozen SPED kids, it could bankrupt them.

The problem is that SPED is a unfunded mandate. If you want to get rid of the local charter school, just have a bunch of SPED kids apply.

[SoftballMominVA]

Sped is a partially funded mandate - with emphasis on partial.

However, I would think that charter schools would jump at the extra stipend Sped brings in and some of these kids would be well served by the smaller clases and more individual attention

[buwaya]

Charter schools don’t usually have smaller class sizes.

And a lot of Sped spending is highly inefficient because of the general policy of mainstreaming; specialized Sped teachers for a given set of problems jump around from class to class or school to school instead of dealing with their kids in one time and place, which is what is usually done in Europe and elsewhere, that do a generally better job at this stuff than the US.

[shag377]

You know the answer as well as I do.:)

If a charter school fails to perform, it closes.

If a charter school takes in too many Special Needs kids, test scores go down, and fails.

But, if they are going to take federal/state money, they need to take one and all just like all schools.

[Amelia]

I wonder if anyone has done a study on voucher programs and kids with special needs? Do the private schools which accept vouchers also accept special needs children?

In my state, children with special needs can get vouchers to attend private schools, but I haven’t seen any information on how many students have applied for those vouchers.