The Online NewsHour takes a look at the charter schools that are the cornerstone of the effort to transform New Orleans' educational system. John Merrow's report takes a hard look at the issue of charter schools' overall failure to serve special-education students. I'm following this because it reflects patterns in charter schools nationwide.
The headline and summary from www.pbs.org:
New Orleans Charter Schools Produce Mixed Results: Is a change in management enough to transform some of the worst schools in the country? New Orleans superintendent Paul Vallas seems to think so. But while charters are outperforming other schools in New Orleans, there's evidence that they may be abusing their freedom
The report describes the successes going on in New Orleans charter schools, as do so many other news reports on the post- Katrina Recovery School District. I'm excerpting the portion below because it's rare for the mainstream press to take a look at the issue of charter schools' underserving special-education students.
Some excerpts:
JOHN MERROW: But not everyone believes that charters are the answer.
... CHERYLLYN BRANCHE [principal of a non-charter elementary school}: I think there are good charters and bad charters. I really do feel that there's room at the table, but I don't think to designate that an entire city be charterized makes any sense. Good schools make sense for every child.
JOHN MERROW: National studies support Branche. Although there are many outstanding charter schools, reports show that overall charter success is mixed.
Branche has further reason to be wary: She says some charter schools are being unfair to disadvantaged children.
CHERYLLYN BRANCHE: Parents are seeking places for their children who may have physical handicaps, mental or emotional handicapping conditions, and they're not being accepted by charters. I get referrals from specific principals of charter schools. "Go to Banneker. Tell Miss Branche I sent you. Go to Banneker."
JOHN MERROW: It's what school administrators call "dumping," transferring those with special education needs or just kids who are behaving badly to other schools.
You're getting kids who are being pushed out of charters...
CHERYLLYN BRANCHE: Correct.
JOHN MERROW: ... more special-ed kids than you...
CHERYLLYN BRANCHE: Correct. Yes, exactly right.
JOHN MERROW: So the charter movement is hurting you.
CHERYLLYN BRANCHE: It is hurting children.
... JOHN MERROW: District-wide data indicate that Vallas has a problem. The average special education population in traditional schools is 12 percent, but at charter schools, it's less than 8 percent.
Are your charter schools somehow excluding special needs kids?
PAUL VALLAS: No. No, not at all. Charters are generally much smaller than regular, traditionally run schools. You know, so charters may not have the capacity to have the various special education specialties like the speech therapists, et cetera. A parent's going to ask, "Do you have these services?" And if a charter doesn't have those services, the parent's going to look for another school.
KARRAN HARPER ROYAL, Parent Advocate: That's discrimination. That's discrimination. You can dress it up however you like to, but it's really discrimination.
JOHN MERROW: Parent advocate Karran Harper Royal has a child with special needs attending a New Orleans public school. She says Vallas needs to slow down.
KARRAN HARPER ROYAL: He needs to appoint a staff person or a few staff people who review the admissions of these charter schools, because clearly something is going wrong here. I want to see objective evaluation of the charters we have before we move forward with trying to charter everything.
... JOHN MERROW: While Vallas admits to no wrongdoing, he promises to hold charters accountable.
PAUL VALLAS: As more of our schools convert to charters and as more of our schools are granted charter-like independence, we're going to be doing more policing, we're going to focus more on accountability. If you are deliberating discouraging people or turning people away, that would be breach of contract. You can lose your charter.
JOHN MERROW: Nationwide, the percentage of charter schools is about 5 percent, a far cry from Vallas' 54 percent. In the coming years, both numbers are expected to grow substantially and, as they do, there's sure to be more debate about their effectiveness, as well as calls for more regulation.
Comments
Thanks for the write-up, Caroline. You and your readers can watch the program and follow the entire series of Michelle Rhee and Paul Vallas at www.learningmatters.tv.
Keep up the great work!
San francisco is not much better in the way it treats Special Ed student and teachers. SPED students are stigmatized and marginalized. It reminds one of the Animal Farm quote: All are created equal, but some are more equal than others...The resources always float to the top like Lowell and SOTA..both rigged entry systems where long time stakeholders hand pick compliant, high test scoring, white and asian kids while the mostly african american and hispanic special ed programs get nothing but lip service and feigned concern..It's shameful but most principals, administrators and parent groups seek to keep SPED programs in the basement, away from others, because of they are incompetent and ignorant of the challenges these kids, and those who work with them, face
Bill, I know there are a lot of issues and problems in the way SFUSD works with special-education students. I've asked special-education advocates and have been told that there are no diverse urban school districts that are successful enough in this area to use as a model.
But there are key differences.
Public school districts still accept and work with disabled students, albeit imperfectly. In some cases, they pay for disabled students to attend specialty non-public schools. I know that funding falls far short of need and there are many problems and complaints.
But still, by contrast, when a charter school says "we don't have the services your child needs, so goodbye," that charter school never has to set eyes on the kid or family again -- washes its hands of them. Gone and forgotten.
So just that situation makes the comparison unsound. And, again, information on a national level clearly shows that the situation in New Orleans is reflected nationwide -- charter schools overall serve far fewer special education students (percentagewise) than non-charter schools do.
While I understand the criticism, the public school system in New Orleans was performing poorly before Katrina. What KIPP and other charters have done post Katrina is truly amazing and one of the few bright spots in our recovery. Let's be careful how we frame the criticism and balance it with the amazing work these schools are doing with very under-served students.
Thank you, Caroline. This is so important to know. As a father of a child with autism my chances of getting him the kind of help he needs are slim, at a charter school: none.
Excuse the typo: Thank you, Caroline. This is so important to know. As a father of a child with autism my chances of getting him the kind of help he needs AT A TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOL are slim, at a charter school: none.
All children have a right to fair access to education. Sounds like New Orleans needs to look into programs like (3 w's).princeton-house.org, (3 w's).newyorkcenterforautism.com, charterinsights.blogspot.com/2009/05/charter-schools-are-better-model-for_06.html and more. If New Orleans is looking to go all charter, New Orleans should research charter schools which provide excellent services inlusively of children with special needs.
Caroline sends her kids to SOTA, full of hand-picked elite spoon-fed children, and SOTA does not fully include children with disabilities, they segregate them into special education only classes.
Rather than censor misleading flames, I'll clarify.
My children attend San Francisco School of the Arts, which admits by audition, as do high-quality public arts schools in many districts nationwide. "Hand-picked" and "elite" are of course terms intended to sound pejorative, but yes, SOTA does admit by audition; some people do consider that a bad thing.
Obviously, as a parent, I have nothing to do with how SFUSD applies its special education policies. There are many students with disabilities in my kids' classes, and SOTA has special day classes serving students with more-severe disabilities. An SDC student plays in SOTA's (yes) elite, audition-only SOTA Latin band with my kids, and another was a dancer in SOTA's high-quality recent annual musical production, "The Wedding Singer."
As I said previously, SFUSD -- and SOTA -- accept and work with disabled students, albeit imperfectly. I know that funding falls far short of need and there are many problems and complaints.
But still, by contrast, when a charter school says "we don't have the services your child needs, so goodbye," that charter school never has to set eyes on the kid or family again -- washes its hands of them. Gone and forgotten.
So just that situation makes the comparison unsound. And, again, information on a national level clearly shows that the situation in New Orleans is reflected nationwide -- charter schools overall serve far fewer special education students (percentagewise) than non-charter schools do.
Carolyn,
I'm not reading that the charter schools send families packing "good bye" but that some opt out after being offered a spot because the programming is incomplete for their student.
I do agree that the part of the interview is bothersome (obviously since I offered suggestions below). To me every school needs to continue to ask themselves "What else can we do to serve our kids" regardless of situation. Many charter schools do this really well and serve "special needs" children as well as other learners (see my series on charter schools and special needs).
And shall a student with more severe disabilities need "a special school" the options are charter schools which specialize in those (if offered in your area) or the very same "special school" in the district that you are mentioning. Charter schools are public schools and as such they too may mention additional district programming which is suited for the child. However, whether or not the charter is the best school for that child or any other programming is always the decision of the parent, not the school.
I think that the speech therapist mentioned in the interview is a poor example as this is not typically a need which cannot be met in a charter school of traditional setting.
Many charter schools purchase back such services from the school district if they cannot provide them.
Again, my point is all of our schools need to continue to press on for excellence and inclusion for all kids and when we don't have it we need to look at programs which do and find out how.
At SOTA, they wheel the disabled kids out for performances, to display them. Thats about it.
"Mimi," that is totally inaccurate -- what in the world are you talking about? Who supposedly wheels disabled kids out for performances? If you think that by definition all (or most, or even many) disabled kids are in wheelchairs to begin with, you're poorly informed.
Karin, if you think that the charter school says "we don't have the services for your child, but he's welcome here anyway" -- well, that seems to be to be a stretch, but whatever. This is, of course, not my report but John Merrow's. And again, statistics overall are consistent that charter schools serve far fewer disabled students than non-charter schools. Singling out exceptions to spotlight doesn't change that.
Carolyn,
I read the transcript and Paul Vallas says that charter schools may not offer certain services and the parent chooses to go elsewhere, not that he was sent packing and good bye. Like I said, speach therapy is usually not the dealbreaker for most public schools, but there could be other specific services.
I'm not arguing the statistics in that area, nor the impression this interview leaves, but instead offering suggestions of how we can be more effective, charters AND traditional.
As you know I am not someone who bashes traditional schools,or any other education choice for that matter, but want to work in collaboration for school choice. This includes that when we don't do things perfectly (who does?) we need to figure out what we can do to improve.
For the record, the district charters where I live (CO)have a very similar percentage of special needs children compared to the district. Our district usually has around 6-8% any given year and charters do too. But charter schools in general serve a high "at risk" group and statistically make a difference for graduation rates.
If we are not doing enough, let's work together to fix it--not just sit back and wag a finger.
Well, Karin, you've repeatedly insisted that it doesn't harm public schools when charters drain away their students and resources. No one in the education field shares that view -- even charter school administrators would tell you they would be harmed if students and resources left. I'd bet the principal of your own charter school would affirm that.
Denying reality and promoting charter schools with misinformation doesn't work to remedy problems.
And it's just insulting to characterize my challenging the "education reform" propaganda as finger-wagging.
Caroline is a SOTA parent. That explains a lot. You can pretend that SOTA is inclusive and "high quality" and all the other undeserved, self congratulatory expressions you want to use, but minorities and special ed students are tokens in that rigged SOTA system and they always have been. And, by the way, SOTA art prgrams are not impressive. It is insulting to try and pretend that SOTA's rigged system is anything but another BS, status quo, well-to-do-white kid school. The Academy the district forced onto SOTA is more diverse but SOTA is seperate from that school and yet they try to pretend that SOTA is more diverse by including those academy students in SOTA's stats. That's a joke. Just like the ordinary, arrogant SOTA ARts depts and those who apologize for them
Of course I disagree with "Ryan's" comments, but the one I'll note is that the district did not "force" the Academy of Arts and Sciences on SOTA; it was the brainchild of a SOTA music teacher, and former SOTA principal Donn Harris, took up the idea and launched the Academy. It had several purposes, but one was to expand the arts focus to students who weren't inclined to audition, without compromising SOTA's quality.
The SOTA administration is in the process of making the Academy a legally separate school.
Notice how diversity and equity is not addressed by caroline in relation to academy/sota. If you are an education reporter then do your job by telling the truth and not protecting your own self interest by defending a de-facto private school paid for with public money. But of coure, your children attend so why would you do that?
I'm not sure what all those blasts at SOTA are about.
SOTA is a specialty arts school that by design admits based on audition or judging. The auditions are color-blind -- though the teachers do make an effort to reach out to disadvantaged students.
There are voices that view any school with selective admissions as wrong, but audition arts schools are not unusual around the country.
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