Federal report: Charter schools enroll fewer students with disabilities than traditional public schools
The Government Accountability Office issued a 46-page report on charter schools and students with disabilities, finding that charters enrolled a lower percentage of students with disabilities than traditional public schools in 2008-2009 and 2009-2010.
Nationwide in 2009-2010, students with disabilities represented 8.2 percent of all students enrolled in charter schools. In traditional public schools, students with disabilities accounted for 11.2 percent of students.
In the prior year, charter schools enrolled 7.7 percent of students with disabilities, compared with 11.3 percent in traditional public schools.
In Georgia, charter schools had 2 percent fewer disabled students than traditional schools, according to the GAO report, which was based on federal Department of Education data.
GAO draws no conclusions in its straightforward report about why this disparity exists, noting:
Against the backdrop of a growing and changing charter school landscape, we found that enrollment of students with disabilities in the aggregate is lower in charter schools than in traditional public schools.
Whether these enrollment differences will persist or continue to narrow is difficult to predict, given the lack of information about factors underlying these differences and how they affect enrollment levels. By issuing guidance that raises awareness about the practices that might be perceived as an attempt to discourage enrollment, officials in the states we visited have already begun to take steps to forestall the possibility that charter school admission practices play a role in lower enrollment levels in charter schools.
However, the guidance Education issued in 2000, while important in providing basic information to charter schools with respect to students with disabilities, does not provide more detailed information on the acceptability of specific admission practices under applicable civil rights laws. Moreover, while Education sponsored research several years ago that pointed out problems in charter school admission practices, we believe that the study’s findings do not adequately address the range of possible factors affecting enrollment raised in our report.
For its report, the GAO visited 13 charter schools and interviewed staff, writing:
Officials representing about half of the 13 charter schools we visited said that having sufficient resources to serve students with more severe disabilities, including providing a self-contained classroom when needed, was their greatest challenge. For example, two officials said that their school facility could not provide a self-contained classroom. A third official explained that providing a self contained classroom is especially challenging because of the need to provide separate classrooms for each grade grouping as well as teachers.
Thus, if a school had 3rd and 4th graders requiring self-contained classrooms, they would need to have space to accommodate two separate classrooms. The official said that the charter school would not have enough teachers to cover those different grade levels. According to representatives of charter school organizations we interviewed, providing services to students with severe disabilities can be very costly and some charter schools could face severe financial difficulties serving students with very severe disabilities.
Charter schools that cited insufficient resources as a challenge included both charter school LEAs and charter schools within a district. Other resource challenges school officials cited included the cost of specialists’ services, and obtaining staff qualified to serve their students’ needs, such as a bilingual special education teacher or a specialist to teach an autistic child. However, two charter schools within a district said that, because the district provided all services needed, the cost of services was not a challenge. Both charter schools were located in the same school district.
–from Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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89 comments Add your comment
Poor Boy from Alabama
June 27th, 2012
5:02 am
MD,
The GAO report is essentially a big, fat “nothing burger”. The differences between charter and traditional public schools noted in the report are small and the number of charters reviewed was too limited to draw any meaningful conclusions about the differences. The US Dept. of Education says as much in the comments section of the report (Appendix IV)..
http://www.gao.gov/assets/600/591435.pdf
One has to wonder why the GAO even bothered to issue the report.
There are those who claim that charters cherry-pick their students, but they won’t find any ammunition in this report.
Enjoy your vacation!
Fed Up
June 27th, 2012
6:39 am
“Charter schools enroll fewer students with *** than traditional public schools.”
1) That sentence works for disabled students, minority students, ESL students, etc. Charter schools make it known up front that students AND parents need to be more involved — responsible for their own education (e.g., mandatory volunteering). Some people can’t / won’t do that.
2) Add to that the tiny amount of money that they receive, and it becomes completely unrealistic to expect extraordinary accommodations. Fulton County receives $9000 / student. Our charter school received $3,500 / student one year. If you ask me, it’s barely enough to run the place. I would think that most reasonable parents would recognize the limitations and self-select themselves out of that situation.
mountain man
June 27th, 2012
6:43 am
“Federal report: Charter schools enroll fewer students with disabilities than traditional public schools”
No Sh*t, Sherlock! And if you look at private schools, you will see that they enroll even less. Why do you think they “look better”.
mountain man
June 27th, 2012
6:45 am
“Our charter school received $3,500 / student one year.”
That probably is what the public schools spend on the average student if you take out the “special” educations.
The formula is highly skewed – $3500 for a “normal” student, $30,000 for a SPED student – average – $9000.
mountain man
June 27th, 2012
6:47 am
“There are those who claim that charters cherry-pick their students”
Of course they do! Just making parents apply to get their kids into a charter school is a filter. Let alone any other requirements.
Poor Boy from Alabama
June 27th, 2012
7:08 am
Fed up and mountain man,
I suggest you check out what the National Center for Education Statistics (part of the US Dept of Education) says about charter schools:
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=30
The percentage of charter schools that were high-poverty schools—where 75 percent or more of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL)—increased from 13 percent in 1999–2000 to 30 percent in 2008–09. In comparison, 19 percent of traditional public schools were considered high poverty in 2008–09. During this time period, the percentage of charter schools that were low poverty (25 percent of students or less were eligible for FRPL) decreased from 37 to 24 percent.
Does that sound like cherry picking to you? Keep in mind that the US Dept of Education says there are minimal differences in the percentage of students with disabilities at charter schools vs. traditional public schools.
US Dept. of Education data does not support the contention that charter schools cherry pick their students.
Poor Boy from Alabama
June 27th, 2012
7:18 am
Fed Up and mountain man,
Use this link if you want to compare minority student enrollment numbers for charter schools vs. traditional public schools:
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d06/tables/dt06_097.asp
This data from NCES also shows higher percentages of minority students at charter schools than at traditional public schools.
Make your case with facts and figures from credible sources if you still feel that charter schools cherry pick their students.
Mountain Man
June 27th, 2012
7:21 am
You can always cherry-pick the best of the poor students, the ones who have a mother who cares about education, leaving the dregs behind in the public schools.
Charter schools are specifically created to avoid some of the “onerous” regulations associated with regular schools. That is the reason they exist.
Howard Finkelstein
June 27th, 2012
7:25 am
Oh brother. Here comes more of the “Fairness Doctrine” and with it the attempted destruction of something that works.
“But Mommy, its not fair.”
Jessica
June 27th, 2012
7:35 am
Why is it a surprise or a problem these specialized learning environments are not set up to cater to the wide range of special needs that exist? It would be ridiculous to expect them to do so.
Looking back over the topics of the past few weeks, I’m starting to think this blog is being used to wage a campaign against charter schools…
BC
June 27th, 2012
7:37 am
And the victory goes to….Mountain Man!
m
June 27th, 2012
7:41 am
God, the AJC writers are pathetic. Crap article with skewed descriptive statistics just to generate blog hits.
Mountain Man
June 27th, 2012
7:46 am
“Make your case with facts and figures from credible sources”
Check out this link to the Charter of the Ridgeview Charter School in Sandy Springs:
http://school.fultonschools.org/ms/ridgeview/Documents/Charter/RCS%20Renewal%20petition%202010%20FINAL%20FCS%20Approved%20042211.pdf
Specifically look at the Waivers stating on page 54. One such requirement that this charter school has is mandatory parental involvement, including membership in the PTA and ten hours of service work.
This certainly sounds like cherry-picking to me.
Mountain Man
June 27th, 2012
7:50 am
It is not that I have a problem with charter schools, especially charter schools that address issues that public schools seem not to want to address: attendance, discipline, parental involvement (homework). I just can’t understand why public schools don’t address these issues.
old school doc
June 27th, 2012
8:03 am
Sometimes I wish the powers-that-be would just admit that this is what happens and , instead of denying it, claim it as such.
Why not, in each area of town, have a school for kids /parents who care (of whatever SES level) and have strict rules about how a child may stay at that school? And in each area have schools loaded with extra help/support/ more teachers for kids whose parents, for whatever reason, cannot be involved in their kids education.
As it is, families of all SES/races do not want their kids’ education hijacked by litigious kids/parents who disrupt class, who do not really care about education, and who expect all to only try for the minimum. They flee– to charters, to homeschool, to privates.
I wonder what would happen if bright children/families were given a choice, what would they choose: a. a school with strict entry recs/ attendance/ parent involvement/ high expectations, but with perhaps fewer of the extras,
OR
b. a school that caters to kids who may have troubled home lives, educational deficits, behavioral problems, that is chock full of support services and teachers/therapists, etc? This choice would of course be a smaller school, but with higher per pupil expenses.
I would gladly choose the former.
Lee
June 27th, 2012
8:03 am
“Charter schools enroll fewer students with disabilities than traditional public schools”
So what?
“In traditional public schools, students with disabilities accounted for 11.2 percent of students.”
I wonder how many of those “disabilities” would be cured by a good diet, exercise, and sunshine? Quite a few, I would wager….
Poor Boy from Alabama
June 27th, 2012
8:23 am
Mountain Man,
The traditional knock on charter schools is that they only take the best students. Data from the US Dept of Education shows that charters have higher percentages of low income and minority students and about the same percentage of students with special needs as traditional public schools so that argument goes out the window.
You seem to be saying that charter schools somehow manage to get the best of the low income students, as if that would offset the overall demographic advantage traditional public schools enjoy.
I’m not familiar with Ridgeview Charter in Sandy Springs, but I’ve worked in charter schools in several states. I can assure you that most charters have to compete with traditional public schools for students. Very few of them have the luxury of rejecting potential students. Most welcome the opportunity to serve any and all students.
What parents often find appealing about charter schools is that they welcome and encourage their involvement. I’ve been in a K-8 charter school that had a “Grandparents Week” where students and grandparents went to class together. Many grandparents flew in from around the country to participate. Have you ever seen a public school do that?
Charters have boards that often include parents with children enrolled in the school. While they have to comply with the same regulations and have to meet the same standards as public schools, charters usually have more flexibility when it comes to work rules and other aspects of their operations. Teachers and other staff members often find the resulting environment invigorating. Students and parents usually like it too. That’s the difference between charters and traditional public schools, not selective admissions.
atlmom
June 27th, 2012
8:43 am
So what? Who cares? Are charters doing better for our kids? That should be what matters. Or should we just accept crappy public schools because they are more ‘equal’? Is that *really* what we want?
If another type of school is doing better for a whole bunch of children – shouldn’t we celebrate that? Rather than try to knock it down with idiotic numbers that are meaningless?
If parents choose to send their kids to charters…that means that parents are deciding that they like them better than the public school. What is so bad about that? I think we can all agree that public schools are failing *all* children in this country – incredibly. For anything to be even slightly better – shouldn’t we applaud that? Shouldn’t we want that?
And then if the public schools do serve kids with disabilities better – shouldn’t that be where they should go?
Mountain Man
June 27th, 2012
8:44 am
“Most welcome the opportunity to serve any and all students. ”
Does that include the discipline problem students? Does it include students who miss school 40 days a year because their parent (mother) is too lazy to get them up? Does it include the SPED student that requires a full-time nurse to be with them and change their diaper, whose education runs a cost of $30,000 per year?
mark.
June 27th, 2012
8:44 am
This state spending per a capita is near the bottom. If this continues, we will be reading more stories about Atlanta’s business future being hindered. At some point, large companies will not be able to attract workers due to our educational system. Every dollar spent on Education, makes $5 of growth in the future. If our elected officals would fully fund QBE, instead of saying, ” oh well, not enough money”, local govt’ make cuts” Then we would have plenty of cash for charter and public. until these elected “so called leaders” get their act together, this blog will be a slam on charter schools, since they do take money out of the states funds and send it to Florida.
EduKtr
June 27th, 2012
8:45 am
So the enrollment difference here in Georgia is only 2 percent? Why are we even talking about this? Just another excuse to stand in the school doorway and block parental choice?
Just a taxpayer
June 27th, 2012
8:59 am
Mountain Man: Go back to school. Your stated “average” of $9k per student isn’t an average. The formulas for cost per student are more complex than your understanding.
Using self selection as a mechanism for weeding out students/people with disabilities is a common practice in child care and other businesses. What’s a parent to say when the administrator says “your child probably won’t get the – attention/education/be safe/etc. – he needs here at the ABC Charter School.” No parent of a child with a disability is going to send their child someplace they won’t prosper.
Public educator
June 27th, 2012
9:05 am
This is precisely the reason there was a huge lawsuit in Georgia over charter schools–Gwinnett County and other counties sued (and won) over having to give up their limited tax revenue to charter schools like Ivy Prep that, as some of you have called it, “cherry pick” their students. Ivy Prep in particular may take low-income students and minority students, but they refuse to provide special education services, so they do not admit students with disabilities. That’s why Gwinnett refused to approve their charter initially. After the supreme court ruled that the state could not override local control to approve charter schools last year, Ivy Prep applied to Gwinnett County again, and Gwinnett approved them and offered a per student funding amount for regular education students. Ivy Prep turned down the offer because they wanted the same per student funding the rest of Gwinnett County schools receive, which is ridiculous since they do not provide the same services (transportation or special education). They just wanted to “have their cake and eat it too.”
RCB
June 27th, 2012
9:13 am
Some disabilities are obvious, but I have to wonder what the guidelines are that make this such a fast-growing demographic. We really have THAT many disabled kids??
Fed Up
June 27th, 2012
9:14 am
I looked through the first 10 pages, trying to find a definition of “disability.” Is it physical? Is it medical? Is it psychological? (I personally feel that most of these ADHD diagnoses are bogus, especially for boys. We need to let boys be boys, if we ever expect them to grow up to be real men.)
Most charter schools I know don’t offer transportation and don’t have hot lunch cafeterias (i.e., pack your lunch every day), so that feeds into the “parent involvement” differential as well.
Maureen Downey
June 27th, 2012
9:17 am
@Fed up, Keep going. Toward the end of the report is a chart with a list of disabilities.
Maureen
Poor Boy from Alabama
June 27th, 2012
9:29 am
Mountain Man @ 8:44
The short answer to your question is yes, most charter schools welcome any and all students, including those with a variety of disabilities. Go to Figure 7 in Appendix III of the GAO report:
http://www.gao.gov/assets/600/591435.pdf
It shows that the differences between charters and traditional public schools are modest across all disability types:
Gotta’ run. Life calls!
NTLB
June 27th, 2012
9:36 am
@mountainman–Ridgeview Charter School’s student population is mostly African-American, HIspanics and ELL students. I have worked there, trust me on this, there is no cherry picking going on there.
As for the required parental involvement, what is on paper and what really happnes are two different things.
Fed Up
June 27th, 2012
9:55 am
I looked at the chart in Appendix III. The percentages look neck-to-neck to me, across all categories. Sometimes public schools had more enrolled students, sometimes charter schools. I’m sure if you ran a “margin of error” calculation (especially given the 40-to-1 difference in sample sizes), they would be statistically equal.
T-Square
June 27th, 2012
9:58 am
Holy crap Batman! It is such a horrible thing (to read Mountain Man’s comments anyway) to expect a student’s parent(s) to be involved with their child’s education. Let me guess, you think packing your kids off to the government to be babysat is a better solution? Do you not think that parents should be involved in their children’s educations? Now, I realize that people work, but if you’re going to take on the responsibility of having a child, shouldn’t you also be able to take on the responsibility of playing an active role in that child’s upbringing and education?
Jarod Apperson
June 27th, 2012
10:06 am
@Mountain Man. Since charter schools, by nature, are a really diverse bunch, it is difficult to make statements about the group as a whole. Lots of things vary from school to school. But I don’t think the notion that most charter schools succeed by simply cherry picking students whose parents care is supportable. Look at cities with high numbers of charter schools and you will see that its not just a couple of parents applying to the lotteries. In central Harlem 75% of parents are applying for a spot in a charter school.
I think all parents want their children to have a great education, and some charter schools have done an excellent job of raising the bar and letting parents know from the beginning (kindergarten) what is expected of them if their child is going to succeed.
Caroline Hoxby of Stanford University did an interesting study that showed students who won a charter lottery outperformed students whose parents also applied for the lottery but weren’t selected.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/education/22charters.html
teacher&mom
June 27th, 2012
10:13 am
Research seems to consistently show that charter schools and traditional public schools basically produce the same results. You have rock star charter/traditional schools and you have subpar charter/traditional schools. Since the data supports that neither one is better or worse, supporters of traditional or charter will cherry-pick the data to support their side.
So here goes some “cherry-picking” on my part:
Charters tend to be small. There are exceptions, New Orleans for example, but most are small schools. I like small schools. A Lot. However, small public schools are constantly fighting consolidation. We’d rather house way too many students in a small university setting, pack them into large classrooms, and pat ourselves on the back for the “economic” savings. We don’t or won’t listen to naysayers who protest that large schools are not necessarily in the best interest of child…especially high-needs learners. One one hand, the public willing supports a small charter school but on the other hand, resents public tax dollars supporting a smaller traditional school. Why?
Charters don’t have to provide transportation. This is a huge expense. The state currently funds around 12% of transportation costs. Local districts have to pick up the other 82%.
Charters are not always held to the same accountability standards. I once worked for a charter school and AYP was determined by EOCT scores and not GHSGT. Given the nature of the charter, we also did not have to worry about attendance. Flexibility is a good thing. It allowed the charter school to better address the unique needs of the population we served. The public school in the same district was not given the same freedom.
Charters can require parental involvement. Public schools can not. I suspect the charters with strong parental involvement are also strong schools. Charters that struggle with parental involvement probably struggle to meet AYP goals. Same with traditional schools.
Perhaps the discussion should not be charter vs. traditional. Perhaps the discussion should be about flexibility and funding.
old school doc
June 27th, 2012
10:18 am
teacher&mom–
Well put.
T-Square
June 27th, 2012
10:21 am
teacher&mom – Charters don’t have to provide transportation. This is a huge expense. The state currently funds around 12% of transportation costs. Local districts have to pick up the other 82%.
Out of curiosity, who picks up the other 6% of the cost?
Jarod Apperson
June 27th, 2012
10:22 am
@teacher&mom. All good points. I especially agree with you on the flexibility charter schools have to demand parental involvement. It’s a huge advantage, and it would be great if there was a way to give traditional schools similar flexibility.
teacher&mom
June 27th, 2012
10:25 am
@T-Square: LOL…I should never attempt simple math before my first cup of coffee. Thanks for catching my error.
T-Square
June 27th, 2012
10:26 am
I was going to make a snarky comment hoping you didn’t teach math, but decided I shouldn’t be a butt this early in the day.
KWDMom
June 27th, 2012
10:37 am
Quote from NTLB: ” Charter School’s student population is mostly African-American, HIspanics and ELL students. I have worked there, trust me on this, there is no cherry picking going on there. ”
I hope you are out of the education field. The fact that you chose the race (AA and Hispanic) and then said there is not cherry picking is simply appalling! Your statement insinuates that if a school is made up of mostly African-Americans and Hispanics then they don’t have many bright students. White does not equal “cherries”. As a Hispanic woman who teaches middle school, I believe and know that race does not determine intelligence. I’m glad you no longer work there and I hope you don’t ever work in another education field. Having that prejudice already in your mind will set up those minority students to fail because YOU believe they will fail.
teacher&mom
June 27th, 2012
10:49 am
Here’s an example of flexibility:
A neighboring school district decided to become a charter district. I pulled up their charter on the web and was very impressed with their plans for the high school. They have been given a great amount of flexibility regarding seat time, academic credits, and standardized testing. This flexibility spills over into “how” the students earn credits. More students can participate in dual-enrollment, work-based learning, on-line learning, etc. Their charter has three or four different options for students to complete high school. There is still accountability. However, the district was able to tailor the accountability to better meet the goals of their charter.
The “one-size-fits-all” is replaced with flexibility to meet the needs of a diverse student population.
My question is this: Why must a district/school become a charter in order to implement innovation? Does anyone know the answer?
EduKtr
June 27th, 2012
10:52 am
@KWDMom: Let’s leave your own race-baiting rhetoric out of the conversation, shall we? Unless you want to open your eyes to the motives of African-American parents THEMSELVES in fleeing the inner-city.
T-Square
June 27th, 2012
10:53 am
teacher&mom – I’m going to guess because of state/federal regulations, and as much as people here aren’t going to like it (and I do realize that there aren’t “real” teacher’s unions here, but there are close approximations) teacher’s unions/organizations and their lobbying power with the state/federal government to keep those regulations strong.
KWDMom
June 27th, 2012
10:59 am
@ KduKtr: It wasn’t at all race baiting. The only thing NTBL wrote to show proof that they weren’t cherry picking was RACE. Can you read?
Jarod Apperson
June 27th, 2012
11:01 am
@teacher&mom. I’m not completely sure what the answer is on that.
When it comes to charter districts like the one you mentioned, I think T-Square is right. The change to charter is a way to remove regulations which currently exist.
When it comes to individual charter schools within a district, they naturally have more flexibility because each parent has specifically elected to attend that school rather than being zoned for it. If they don’t like the programs at that school, they still have their zoned school as an option. I think the fact that parents have an alternative makes it easier for charters to implement whatever programs they think work. If you were to implement the same programs in zoned schools, the program would be pushed down on parents rather than elected. I imagine that change in dynamic would cause more pushback, even if the programs had been shown to work.
EduKtr
June 27th, 2012
11:10 am
@teacher&mom: The plethora of restrictive and special needs mandates placed upon school districts accepting federal funding—are in too many cases promoted by teachers’ unions to support their goals: jobs for life for their members with little of no accountability when it comes to product, and the broadening of the Democratic Party’s base by way of increasing dependency on government.
But dismal results, especially in the inner-city, has caused friction with a major Party constituent—black parents. Hence, charter schools came about as an attempt to ward off even greater reform.
EduKtr
June 27th, 2012
11:18 am
@KWDMom: You may choose to ignore the consensus opinion of black parents fleeing inner-city schools—but please leave self-righteousness out of your arguments. I’m sure the rest of us are perfectly able to read NTBL’s comments in context.
Beverly
June 27th, 2012
11:31 am
Charter schools are bastions of blatant discrimination – choosing only the brightest non-disabled students (mentally, physically, or behaviorally). Certainly this elitist class of students will excel on standardized tests, giving charter schools an unfair advantage will comparing their scores to public schools.
T-Square
June 27th, 2012
11:43 am
TIL that smart children, with good parental supervision and quality teachers have an “unfair advantage” when it comes to taking tests. Who would have thunk it?
living in an outdated ed system
June 27th, 2012
11:53 am
@Maureen, you keep trying to find any article that will fulfill your agenda of bashing charter schools. Let me tell you and your readers something. I am JEALOUS. What am I jealous at? I’m jealous at Delaware. There’s a reason why Delaware won the national Race to the Top competition. Have you or your readers seen Vision 2015? When I read it, all I kept saying was, “Why can’t Georgia do this?” They found a way to get all of the stakeholders to buy off on a common strategic roadmap. I don’t think Georgia is capable of doing that, and as long as Georgia continues to blame the lack of funding for not innovating years ago, I have no problem with giving charter schools some fuel and provide some alternate school design models for our state’s children. They may not all be stellar schools, but I can practically guarantee they will graduate more qualified students.
I truly hope we can reform our public schools in Georgia. After all, I am a public school graduate, but will always enroll my children in a school environment where real learning is taking place, and where I know they will hone the skills they need to get the jobs that haven’t even been created yet.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
June 27th, 2012
11:54 am
Okay. I don’t get it.
It seems every time teacher complain about standardized testing, merit pay, unfunded mandates, increased accountability measures, etc. we are told that we NEED all those regulations in public schools to insure teachers are doing their jobs properly, and that it is the “unions” that are fighting against such regulations being implemented.
Now, when a teacher asks why charter schools can have more flexibility and opt out of mandates and regulations when traditional public schools cannot, she is told that it is the “unions” that are insisting those strong regulations remain in place.
So which is it?
teacher&mom
June 27th, 2012
12:15 pm
“The plethora of restrictive and special needs mandates placed upon school districts accepting federal funding—are in too many cases promoted by teachers’ unions to support their goals: jobs for life for their members with little of no accountability when it comes to product, and the broadening of the Democratic Party’s base by way of increasing dependency on government.”
Any chance you can provide a few examples that are the direct result of teacher unions? *with appropriate citations…..of course*
mountain man
June 27th, 2012
12:15 pm
I would love to see a breakdown of costs for “regular” students versus “special” or “disabled” students. If anyone has seen such a breakdown, I would love to see it. I think it is probably deliberately not broken out this way because the parents of the “regular” students would revolt if they knew how much was being spent.
Apparently, when IDEA was passed, the Federal government agreed to pay UP TO 40% of the ADDITIONAL costs to educate these “special” students (so it is only a “partially funded mandate” – why not pay 100% of the additional costs your law requires). But the Federal government only ACTUALLY pays about 17% of the additional costs, leaving the state and local to pay the other 83%. And you know what has happened with the state money. And local funds are being cut due to lower home assessments.
Maureen Downey
June 27th, 2012
12:19 pm
@Living, Feel free to be jealous of Delaware for its $100 million Race to the Top grant victory, but Georgia also won a Race to the Top grant worth $400 million. (11 states and the District of Columbia won.) I have to imagine there are many states that didn’t win that are envious of Georgia.
Maureen
EduKtr
June 27th, 2012
12:24 pm
@love/hateteaching: Unions fight against accountability in traditional public schools, where union membership—especially up north—is often a condition of employment.
But you cannot have escaped noticing that it is the unions and their surrogates here in this blog who uniformly OPPOSE charter schools and the very flexibility charters enjoy. Ditto when it comes to empowering parents to choose among competing schools.
How does the extra $168 yearly which Georgia Association of Educators members pay their parent union (the NEA) bankroll this? Here are some resource links …
ref: http://www.nea.org/home/18469.htm
ref: http://goo.gl/rtJIZ
ref: http://goo.gl/bNdPt
NTLB
June 27th, 2012
1:03 pm
@KWDMom—- First question for you: Are you a minority? Second question: Are you an educator? I am both.
You grossly misconstrued my statement. If you are cognizant or even well informed of the student achievement gap that exists between White and minority students in Georgia and this country then we can talk. The missions of most charter schools in Georgia are focused to close this acheivement gap, you can’t cherry pick students for this—that is my point.Ridgeview does and has a great job with their minority student population.
And once again, if you or any other person on this blog think education is “color blind” and of equal access to all, then you are all in for a rude awakening.
living in an outdated ed system
June 27th, 2012
1:04 pm
But you see, @Maureen, Georgia will waste the $400 because they have no agreement amongst the stakeholders. I’d rather have $100 million spent wisely than $400 million going into the toilet!
living in an outdated ed system
June 27th, 2012
1:04 pm
And believe me, I am not envious of Georgia. The environment is toxic here.
living in an outdated ed system
June 27th, 2012
1:06 pm
Where is Georgia’s common roadmap? Where’s our strategic vision? You’re willing to take money without a cohesive strategy to spend it that every stakeholder has bought off on. Instead, we have no consensus and we have people who will do everything possible to protect the status quo and be Diane Ravitch wannabes.
catlady
June 27th, 2012
1:12 pm
Funny, but our public, non-charter school provides a self-contained class for students from 2-4+ grade. (I say 4+ because many of the kids are held here for 4-5 years, as it is understood that the schools will be working with them until 21, and a high school stay of 6-7 years is deemed not to be good.)
Charter schools have a specialized group to work with, because kids are usually NOT randomly assigned there. Parents have to be aware of the presence of a charter, seek information, and apply, which means you have better than the run of the mill parents/kids there. Part of it is self-selection, but it is borne on the back of social and cultural capital. Not every parent has a wealth of this capital to draw from.
Good Mother
June 27th, 2012
1:24 pm
Catlady says that charter schools essentially don’t discriminate; it’s up to the parents to self-select. She writes “Part of it is self-selection, but it is borne on the back of social and cultural capital. Not every parent has a wealth of this capital to draw from.”
I agree. That’s true. Some sub-cultures in Atlanta value sports more than education. I once heard a man brag that he bought his 13 year-old son a $300 baseball glove and he said he camped out overnight to put his son into the best baseball camp. I asked him why he did this and he replied that he wanted his son to get an athletic scholarship to college….but….what if he put all that time and effort into learning academics? Aren’t academic scholarhips more plentiful that athletic ones? (yes)
In the South we as a society teach our sons that sports are more important that academics — in particular, the black sub-culture. Time on the baseketball court could be time in the library.
It is no secret why there are very few Indian and Asian boys on the baseketball and football fields….yet, there are many getting academic scholarships.
So, it’s not a “cultura” access problem down here in Atlanta as it may be in Catlady Country (Appalachia). Down here it is a mind-set — stand on the corner and make up rap lyrics, play basketball and football and rail on the “white” society the “man” is bringing you down.
Hogwash. Get the rap music out of your ear, pull up your baggy pants and walk respectfully into the school library and read….
Irisheyes
June 27th, 2012
1:31 pm
I wonder how well charters, who encourage their students to think outside of the box, will play in Texas now that the Republican party is officially against “critical thinking skills”. I’m sure the same platform will be coming here to Georgia soon.
catlady
June 27th, 2012
1:56 pm
GM, an example of the social/cultural capital I am talking about plays out like this: You are at the ball field watching your son/daughter practice, and casually talking with the other moms/dads. You overhear two parents comparing notes about applying to college, such as when their child is taking the SAT or taking it over to try and increase the score. Or,they are comparing notes about AP Physics vs some other AP class for acceptance into Tech. In this scenario, if you don’t already know a lot about college applications and acceptance, you are acquiring this kind of middle class capital that well may benefit your child.
In Appalachian North Georgia, we have other “cultural” obstacles, ie “You can’t leave here and go to college, boy! Are you trying to show you are better than yore daddy? I worked in the mill for 40 year, and that’s good enough for you!” and other such beliefs.
T-Square
June 27th, 2012
1:57 pm
Irisheyes – So, this is a left vs. right type issue? I thought this was an issue about how to best educate your children? At any rate, care to share some actual details or are we just going to ride the hyperbole train into town?
T-Square
June 27th, 2012
1:58 pm
catlady – In Appalachian North Georgia, we have other “cultural” obstacles, ie “You can’t leave here and go to college, boy! Are you trying to show you are better than yore daddy? I worked in the mill for 40 year, and that’s good enough for you!” and other such beliefs.
And that is the reason that, out of the 86 in my graduating class, only about 6 of us made it permanently out of the county and graduated from college. The rest are back home working in the mills.
Mountain Man
June 27th, 2012
2:26 pm
“But you cannot have escaped noticing that it is the unions and their surrogates here in this blog who uniformly OPPOSE charter schools and the very flexibility charters enjoy”
Of course teachers and teachers “unions” oppose giving charters that flexibility – it is withheld from public schools. Teachers are crying out for mandated parental involvement – but the cries fall on deaf ears. Teachers are crying out for real discipline, but the cries are ignored, Teachers would even like to see the exising truancy laws enforced so they aren’t expected to teach kids that aren’t there, but to no avail. Teachers would LOVE to be exempt from some of the onerous testing requirements, but only charter schools get THOSE exemptions. Charter schools are constantly bragging about how they accomplish so much more than public schools and “follow the same rules”, but the truth is , they have a totally different set of rules. If charters are so good, let’s remove all their waivers, tell them they cannot require uniforms and parental involvement, and give them a random selection of students assigned out of the general student population to teach, and see how well they do.
That would almost be as funny as sending a Walton High teacher down to an APS inner-city school and evaluate them on the test scores of their students.
ELMom
June 27th, 2012
2:33 pm
@Mountain Man if everyone agrees that flexibility is important then why remove the flexibility to charters just to spite them and prove what we already know (lack of flexibility does not work)? Why can’t we instead insist that all of our schools have flexibility? Some districts have already gone charter for this very reason.
Mountain Man
June 27th, 2012
2:35 pm
“Why can’t we instead insist that all of our schools have flexibility? ”
AMEN! Give the lady a gold star!!! That is what I (and a lot of people) have been saying all along!
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
June 27th, 2012
2:39 pm
@EduKtr “But you cannot have escaped noticing that it is the unions and their surrogates here in this blog who uniformly OPPOSE charter schools and the very flexibility charters enjoy. ”
No, actually I had not noticed such a thing, because no one here has ever claimed to be a union “surrogate” – they have only be acccused of such by folks like you. Oh, and those accusations include me, even though I do not belong to PAGE or GAE, and have often asked why traditional schools cannot have the same flexiblity as charter schools.
I don’t oppose flexibility. I do not even ooppose charters in principle. I oppose charters claiming they are something which they are not, and proponents who insist on one set of rules for tratisional public schools and another for charters, while then making comparisions as though the schools were on equal footing.
@Mountain Man “Charter schools are constantly bragging about how they accomplish so much more than public schools and “follow the same rules”, but the truth is , they have a totally different set of rules.’
Amen.
sneak peek into education
June 27th, 2012
2:46 pm
I wouldn’t mind having every school a charter IF AND ONLY IF they can show that the education our children received is superior in every way from our traditional schools. The fact is that this is not the case. Sure there are some that do exceed that of the traditional schools but those are few and far between. On the whole, most charter schools perform at the same level or below that of their traditional counterparts. It should also be noted that they can’t provide the results they promise even with the flexibility that is not allowed in traditional schools. I also have a problem with the for profit charters coming in to make money off the back of our children. There are numerous cases throughout our country where our children are being used as pawns to line the pockets of the money-men. I am not a Diane Ravitch wannabe but she has exposed many of the malpractices and dishonesty that goes on behind the doors of some of our charter schools. She does not advocate the status quo and has offered very viable suggestions to improve the educational opportunities for all of our children and not just the chosen few. It is funny that the statements referring to how broken our schools are are in fact instigated and perpetuated by the people who want to swoop in and make some big bucks.
Good Mother
June 27th, 2012
3:28 pm
Catlady said “In Appalachian North Georgia, we have other “cultural” obstacles, ie “You can’t leave here and go to college, boy! Are you trying to show you are better than yore daddy? I worked in the mill for 40 year, and that’s good enough for you!” and other such beliefs.”
I understand. As a woman I was expected to be married out of high school and get a good-paying, steady postal worker job.
…yet, especially in the city…there is access to education and those that have not can clearly see there is a way to middle class life — thorugh education. Out in the sticks, in rural places, there isn’t even a bus to get someone to a job or a library or even to a grocery store…
but down here in Atlanta we have all kinds of programs for the poor and access to learning but what we don’t have is a lot of parents who would rather help their kid than blame the “man.”
Really?
June 27th, 2012
5:00 pm
‘As a woman’? Still desperately clinging to the fantasy?
sneak peek into education
June 27th, 2012
5:14 pm
For those of you who think that the for profit charter companies really care about the education of our children, this shows it’s all about the money….
http://capitalroundtable.com/masterclass/For-Profit-Education-Private-Equity-Conference-2012.html
RCB
June 27th, 2012
5:23 pm
No matter what kind of school you attend, there are a LOT of free resources in Atlanta. Whether you to choose to avail yourself of them or not is a personal/parental choice.
living in an outdated ed system
June 27th, 2012
5:23 pm
Herein lies the problem with Georgia’s public education system. It all goes back to a Constitution that is woefully inadequate. The first paragraph of Article VII of our state constitution reads like this: “The provision of an adequate public education for the citizens shall be a primary obligation of the State of Georgia.”
That’s right. ADEQUATE. Not “quality” or even “high quality.” Adequate. So it seems we’ve been fine with mediocrity. I do not support such pathetic language. Our children need the best education possible, and if our local public schools won’t do it well, then lets give our public charter schools a fair shot. What’s wrong with a few more “Drew Charter School” successes? Success means our kids are graduating and getting the skills they need for college and/or future career. Isn’t that what we want for our kids?
I don’t want adequate. Do you?
RCB
June 27th, 2012
5:25 pm
“Whether you choose…”…. Sorry.
NBCT
June 27th, 2012
5:46 pm
Its a shame that schools do that.
Jerry Eads
June 27th, 2012
6:32 pm
At the risk of being flip, oh duh. OF COURSE they enroll fewer special ed students, and, if we looked deeper, OF COURSE they enroll less disabled special ed students. HUGE amounts of money are expended by public schools to address the needs of these kids. Charter schools tend (I repeat, TEND) to not be monitored as closely as regular public schools. They tend (I repeat, TEND) not to have the same level of funding as regular public schools. To some extent, they tend (I repeat, TEND) to be able to “cherry pick” their students. I’m actually very heartened that the fed report percentages are as high as they are. You want a real eye opener, take a look (which we can’t) at Georgia’s private schools taking advantage of the tax incentives. Those percentages for special education will approach zero. Your tax money at work.
MB
June 27th, 2012
6:58 pm
One problem in comparisons is that you are looking at very different types of charter schools; Ridgeview, for example, is a conversion charter. It was a Fulton County public school which converted to charter status, so it serves all students in its geographic feeder area, just with contracted differences in curricular delivery, parent participation requirements, standardized dress, etc. That is very different from schools like KIPP and the FSA schools, which draw students from various geographic areas. (And, as is noted, earlier, who don’t provide transportation for their students.)
Teacher&Mom: All public school systems must decide by June 30, 2015, whether they will request flexibility under IE2 (e.g., Gwinnett and Forsyth systems) or charter system (e.g., Fulton – effective 7/1/12 – and Decatur and Marietta City systems), or remain at status quo with state requirements. An overview of the differences, with citations of related Georgia Code and legislation is at http://tinyurl.com/GaDOEChartIE2
MB
June 27th, 2012
7:03 pm
In Fulton County Schools’, per a budget presentation with 2010 figures, federal funds covered 25%, state funds 14%, and local funds 61% of the average cost of $30,323 per FTE for special ed students. For 2010, that meant that (in Fulton Schools alone), $156.9 million was spent on 5174 students, with $96.4 million of that amount local (property tax) funds. For comparison, cost per FTE for “regular” (non-SpEd, non-ESL) students in Fulton was $8704 per FTE; again, since class sizes have increased for students in regular (and gifted) classes, it would seem reasonable that the differential may be even greater now. Here is the link to the budget document: http://tinyurl.com/FCSSSpEd
mountain man
June 27th, 2012
8:27 pm
Thank you, MB.
catlady
June 27th, 2012
9:23 pm
T square–Your hometown still has mills??
catlady
June 27th, 2012
9:25 pm
GM: Here it is being a bank teller. You get to know the young men “headed up.”
This gets old
June 27th, 2012
9:49 pm
@sneak: Back to beating the old tired drum of anti-capitalism, again?
Demonizing profit will apparently continue to be the mantra of the Democrat left and their union allies. To them, rather than being places of learning, schools are primarily places of cash (dues) generation for the unions and their political allies.
Parents and their kids don’t matter. And reform is a dark word, indeed.
3schoolkids
June 27th, 2012
11:12 pm
The problem comes in the comparison. You can’t compare the traditional school to the charter school BECAUSE it is not the same student population and BECAUSE the regulations (mandates) are different. The only way you could make a reasonable comparison would be to follow “subject” students from different SES, racial and ability groups from year to year. That means in order to get data about whether a charter model works better than the traditional model, you would have to track student a and student b and student c and supply them with the same assessment model (testing, evaluations, etc.) to determine which model works best. Neither side, traditional or charter, will ever let that happen so you will never get a scientific comparison. No one wins the argument so we continue to banter back and forth and let this or that political candidate vie for our attentions based upon our emotions.
It is no surprise charters don’t take as many disabled students. Comparing percentages again will give you the wrong picture. The larger inner city charter will have more resources (i.e. more funding from a larger base of disabled students) to provide services whereas a smaller charter will not have the resources and will not be able to provide the needed services, so will not attract a disabled student to apply for enrollment (or will deny a disabled student enrollment-and there are quite a few civil rights lawsuits nationwide as a result).
If you look at the QBE reports you can see this. It all comes down to the financials. If the charter can take several mildly disabled students that can be mainstreamed and don’t require extra services (PT, OT, ST) then the extra money they get for that student benefits the school’s bottom line. If they enroll a student that requires more services, or a full-time nurse and special needs transportation then they will actually have to spend the funds they get for that student on just that student and it doesn’t help their bottom line. Don’t mean to generalize, am hoping there are some charters out there that are actually trying to serve their students and aren’t doing it for the money. Please keep in mind some blanket waivers for charters mean they are not required to have teachers certified in special needs teaching special ed (which saves them money).
QBE can also be very revealing about funding for disabled students, the funding varies by categorized disability so saying we spend $30,000 on disabled students vs. regular is generalizing and irresponsible. If you want to know what is spent, read the QBE and do the research on the GADOE website, including what each category stands for and the services that might go with it. As a parent, I do not know what disability category my son was in when he was in the system, I only know that if we had opted to take the Special Needs Scholarship it would have provided about $8700 for 2010 (not necessarily every year because they re-evaluate the disability and need for services for his diagnosis which at the time was significant developmental disability).
Once you do the research if you still believe that disabled students should have no right to these services at the cost of the taxpayer, then contact your elected officials. Please remember to include free/reduced lunch, transportation, gifted funding, welfare, food stamps, medicaid, corporate taxbreaks, the list could go on. If your “regular” neighborhood kid was hit by a car and suddenly disabled and was going to need special ed for the rest of their education would you feel the same way about everyone having the right to these services? I only wish sunshine, fresh air and exercise could fix my kid-or any other.
I volunteered in my son’s kindergarten class quite a bit. One day a kid who I had not heard speak a word all year said “paint!” while we were painting a craft and you should have seen the whole class celebrate! This kid was beaming because he KNEW what he had done! Should he have been denied that opportunity? No.
Mary
June 27th, 2012
11:15 pm
Still waiting for our turn in CCPS…
http://www.news-daily.com/news/2012/jun/26/fair-play-or-foul-pay/
sneak peek into education
June 28th, 2012
12:34 am
@this gets old-you are so wrong. I am not an anti-capitalist and just because you say it is, doesn’t make it so. I just happen to believe that it is wrong to make a profit off the backs of our children. The very people who are filling the airwaves with the manta of “our schools are broken beyond repair” are the very ones who are waiting to make big bucks off our children.
T-Square
June 28th, 2012
8:30 am
catlady – Assuming you see this, excluding lumber mills, I believe there are 3 major mills in the county, plus another dozen or so within a reasonable distance for commuting.
living in an outdated ed system
June 28th, 2012
12:01 pm
Still waiting, @Maureen. I’d love for you to tell your readers why you think our constitution is acceptable. “Adequate” education? Are you kidding me? I don’t want $400 million of taxpayer dollars from RTTT going to an “adequate” education system. We have a completely broken system and until it is fixed, I would rather see us invest money into some innovative approaches to education. If our local schools won’t reform themselves, then maybe some competition from public charter schools is EXACTLY what this state needs!
Good Mother
June 28th, 2012
3:34 pm
…but if the citizens want charters, let them go where they want to go to get educated — it’s THEIR money.
I don’t give a hoot whether a charter school is for-profit or not — if they teach the kids — good for them!
That’s what I want — a good education for my children and if a for-profit company can provide it AND make a profit — then everyone wins.
I mean, think of it like this –
Do you want to drive a car that the government made, that doesn’t make a profit — and it breaks down and leaves you stranded and is dangerous? or do you want to drive a car that a for-profit company made that is reliable and dependable?
I am all for helping special needs children. Everyone needs an education. What I am not for is a bloated government bureacracy forcing me to choose a public school by denying a charter school.
Think about it — what if the government REQUIRED us to buy a government car that broke down and wouldn’t allow us to build our own charter car company that made a dependable vehicle?
It’s TAXPAYER money and we have a RIGHT to say how it’s spent.
BobDean
July 1st, 2012
4:17 pm
Properly written standards should be clear and easily understood by all stakeholders. The CCSS are very far from meeting this goal. Any standards that need professional development to be understood are no standards at all. As standards go the CCSS are a colossal failure.
The CCSS are inferior to many previous state standards. Even if they were superior, raising the ba r when you aren’t meeting the present bar and expecting more success defies logic. The proponents of CCSS would have us believe that if you are having trouble losing 5 lbs, the solution is to raise your goal to 25 lbs. Hogwash! If you aren’t dealing with the reasons you can’t lose 5 lbs then you have no chance at all of losing 25 lbs.
Since standardized testing has become in vogue the bulk of educational effort and resources has become focused on bringing the bottom of the academic curve up to a very mediocre level. If anyone thinks this is the way to make our students globally competitive they are fools.
I disagree that teachers will eventually make the implementation of the common core state standards work because the goal is not possible. Is it possible to make everyone above average?
We need to junk our comprehensive school system and the one size fits all design it requires and divide our schools into academic and vocational tracts. This is the model used in the top performing European countries and we would be wise to follow suit. I’m not expecting that kind of change anytime soon. The real “Dream Act” is believing that our present politicized system will ever compete in the new global economy.