Charter Schools Under-Enroll Students With Special Needs, New Review Finds
Several recent reports, including one from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, have found that charter schools generally under-enroll special education students when compared to conventional public schools. A new report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, however, asserts that charter schools’ special education rates are much closer to those of district public schools than is described by these other recent reports.
A review of that new report concludes that, even though it was touted as reaching different conclusions – more favorable to charter schools – than past research, in fact the results are very much consistent. It confirms that charter schools are systematically under-enrolling students with special needs.
The report, New York State Special Education Enrollment Analysis, by Robin Lake, Betheny Gross, and Patrick Denice, was reviewed for the Think Twice think tank review project by professor Bruce Baker of Rutgers
