The authors of a new study on how U.S. charter schools are helping children with disabilities say their findings should alarm state education leaders, the agencies that authorize independent public schools and the nonprofit organizations that support them.
Overall, charter schools do not outperform their district-run counterparts when it comes to providing high-quality special education services, the Center for Equity in Learning, a national nonprofit, concluded after an in-depth two-year analysis. Because charter schools exist in part to serve historically underserved students and develop effective ways to meet their needs, this failure has a ripple effect on the education of all children with disabilities, the center’s leaders say.
“The charter school sector was born to expand opportunities for children from marginalized demographics,” says executive director Lauren Morando Rhim. “With children of color and low-income children, the charter school sector has accomplished that. But with children with disabilities, it has not.”
Advertisement – Continue reading below
For her, the most disappointing aspect of the research is that it didn’t turn up many success stories that could illustrate promising practices. “We thought we would look for positive examples, but in reality there were very few,” says Morando Rhim. “We expected to find more states taking action, more authorizing bodies and nonprofits.”
The center organized your report In sections containing recommendations for three distinct groups: states, charter school authorizers, school improvement organizations and others, standards for enrolling, serving and measuring progress of students with disabilities should be built into every stage of a charter school’s life, the researchers say, from the decision to grant it permission to operate to the revocation of its charter if it fails to perform.
What muddies the picture, they say, is the lack of clear, widely accepted standards for defining success for students with disabilities. They attribute this in part to the requirement that special education services be highly individualized (making it difficult to set uniform academic and social-emotional goals) and to persistently low expectations for children’s potential.
Education leaders should pay attention to poor outcomes for children with disabilities because it is the right thing to do, says Morando Rhim. But the lack of urgency to improve special education also poses political problems for the charter school sector.
Charter schools have long been dogged by (often inaccurate) accusations that they turn away children with disabilities. Now, the bipartisan support that charter schools have enjoyed is softening. Instead of pushing to grow the charter sector, conservatives are calling for the rapid expansion of vouchers and other private school choice programs. Meanwhile, as they face unprecedented enrollment declines, advocates for traditional, district-run schools are quick to denounce charters as a competitive threat.
“How do we create a sense of urgency?” asks Morando Rhim. “That’s the million-dollar question.”
According to the report, between 2008 and 2021, the percentage of students enrolled in charter schools nationwide who receive special education services has increased from 8% to 11.5%, but has lagged 2.5% behind district school enrollment since 2012. While enrollment is an “imperfect proxy” for equity, the authors say, it at least partly reflects families’ perceptions that charter schools are viable options for children with disabilities.
A small number of schools achieve outstanding results for children with disabilities, but… Stanford University Research found that while charter schools overall outperform their district counterparts, special education students fall behind by the equivalent of 13 days of learning in reading and 14 days in math.
In terms of providing children with disabilities with a high-quality education, charter schools face little pressure to do more than comply with special education laws, the center found. States and charter school authorities rarely monitor the academic performance of students with disabilities and pay little attention to whether charter schools encourage families of students who need special education to enroll or participate in them. promising practices such as co-teaching, where a special educator and a general education teacher share an inclusive classroom.
The few exceptions the researchers found involved charter school officials who explicitly hold schools accountable for good outcomes for children with disabilities, “making clear to schools that there are consequences for discriminating against students with disabilities and failing to meet their educational needs.”
A separate survey, conducted in 2023 by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, found that only half of authorizers take the basic step of asking charter school applicants to detail their plans for enrolling students with disabilities.
Instead, authorizers at Indiana’s Ball State University told the center’s researchers that special education students’ academic growth is a factor they consider when evaluating the schools they oversee. Lack of progress is considered an “indicator of distress.”
This monitoring has led to numerous improvements, they said. Schools now more quickly assess children to determine if they need services, hire special educators and nurses, offer educational accommodations and communicate better with families about their rights.
The new report also singled out Washington state, which has had charter schools for just 12 years. State law gives priority to prospective charter school founders who plan to enroll and educate children from traditionally disadvantaged demographic groups, with a specific focus on special education.
According to the center, Washington charter schools enroll a higher percentage of students with disabilities than the state’s traditional district schools, place nearly all of them in general education classrooms and, where data are available, make greater learning gains. But achievement is not uniform and huge gaps remain, researchers warn.
The report notes that few other states promote equity in special education at charter schools. In a handful of places, including Washington, D.C., and Colorado, charter schools are allowed to give enrollment preference to students with disabilities.
Few state school funding systems were created with the intention of paying for services for students with disabilities at independent charter schools, resulting in “a patchwork of tailored policies and practices.” Louisiana is a notable exception, giving different levels of funding to New Orleans charter schools based on students’ disabilities. Tennessee recently revised its education funding formula to include 10 different “weights” for students with disabilities.
Overall, the center found no evidence that states’ “anemic” actions have produced positive outcomes for students with disabilities in charter schools.
“Why do we feel comfortable failing children with disabilities?” says Morando Rhim. “Part of the problem is an innate ableism, as if it’s okay for them to fail because we don’t really expect more from them.”
Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided funding to the Center for Student Equity for research and provides funding for The 74.
This story It was produced by The 74, an independent, nonprofit news organization focused on education in the United States.
Read more stories like this. Sign up for Disability Scoop’s free email newsletter to receive the latest developmental disability news directly to your inbox.
