In CSD One we have used both – to try to achieve academic, ethnic/racial and socioeconomic diversity- the goal being to have each of our neighborhood schools look as much like the whole neighborhood as possible.

OSE has been dropping CTT and Self Contained special ed classes into neighborhood schools for several years, ever since they noticed that some schools had well over the district average of students w/ IEPs and some had few to none.

This inequity is one of the issues the community has taken up regarding Girls Prep Academy- which serves NO ELL students ( district average= 12%) and only 8% students w/ IEP’s ( district average = 23% for elementary schools and 29% for Middle Schools). The same trend show true for poverty level and other measures of at risk students.
Serving at risk students is one of the NYS charter law justifications for creating these “education alternatives.”

You call quotas “reactionary” – do folks think an all -girls schools is innovative or reactionary?

How does the kind of sorting out and separating- by sex, ability, language status, socioeconomic class and race by some charters, and by GPC in particular, fit in with Ellen’s point regarding anti-discrimination laws?

And don’t tell me about the “lottery” system- because if you can’t get an application, you can not get in the lottery. I even tried getting a charter school application myself several years ago when parents in my district said they could not apply to Manhattan Charter School which was “incubating’ on the LES but planned to move into a building in the Grammercy Park area. (Surprise- the school is still there, “incubating?” 5 years later!). The principal used the supposed move to convince me I did not want to take my young child so far away for school.
There are also documented cases of GPC turning away students with special needs, as OSE and CSE well know.
Tell us, Kitchen Sink and others, how you think this issue of basic inequity- which surely was NOT the intention of the charter movement or laws- should be addressed?

Principals and staff have been accustomed to being told that they do not have the expertise to educate students with disabilties. I know that no one teacher can be all things to all students but a little honest thinking could bring people back the conclusion that principals and staff go into this to educate all children. Maybe that is pie in the sky thinking but we need to stop beating each other up and work with the students.

As for this new bill, it fails to address the complexity of the issue given that diverse range of approaches. Would it restrict, let’s say, Wildcat Academy Charter School from taking in the dropouts it serves? They enroll surely quite a bit higher than the special education level than the district. Would Family Life Academy CS have to enroll fewer ELLs than it currently does so it could go down to the district level?

And who would be these magical special education and ELL families? How would charters be expected to reach them? You’re talking about a law that’s based on family choice, now you’re compelling certain families to attend a school.

Also, I know the reaction of many charters to this law would be: “Fine, we’ll play along if you force us to and ALSO (like many district schools) over-refer children to the CSE and slap them with IEPs, just to meet your quota.”

Finally, what if this law applied to district schools as well? Would you expect and want to enforce an EVEN distribution of special education and ELL students across all district schools? If not, why would you compel that situation for charters? What about districts that have major imbalances of ELLs? Are we going to start busing kids from Richmond Hill over to Douglaston so the latter could meet an immigrant quota?

Sorry PS 87M – Johnny doesn’t have a slot because we have to get that 4% ELL and 7% special education rate up! (We could just hand Johnny an IEP, I mean, he does fidget quite a bit for a four year old.)

There are surely better ways to address this issue. Setting quotas is reactionary and brainless.

The current law requires charter schools to make “good faith efforts” to enroll comparable numbers of disabled and ELL youngsters as the district … they have chosen to ignore the law and the chartering authority has chosen to allow them too.

——————————————————————————–

A07981 Memo:
BILL NUMBER:A7981

TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the education law, in relation to
requiring charter schools to enroll children with disabilities and
English language learners in comparable numbers to those enrolled in
public schools

PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL: This bill will make charter schools
enroll disabled children and English language learners in numbers compa-
rable to the school district which they serve.

SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:Paragraph a of subdivision 2 of section
2854 of the education law, as amended by section 5 of part 0-2 of chap-
ter 57 of the laws of 2007, is amended to read that “a charter school
must enroll the same or a greater percentage of students with disabili-
ties and limited English proficient students when compared to the
enrollment figures for such students in the school district in which the
charter school is located. Failure to comply for two consecutive years
shall be deemed grounds for revocation of the charter”.

JUSTIFICATION:Charter schools are often given the “average cost” per
student from a school district. This “average cost” includes not only
students with average needs, but also those with special needs. These
students, such as disabled students or those requiring special help to
learn English as a second language cost more than ordinary students. For
this reason, it is often a disincentive for charter schools to work
toward providing a comfortable environment for students requiring
special help. Charter schools must be required to expend the same number
of their resources in order to help with students that require special
help.

PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: None.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: None.

EFFECTIVE DATE:This act shall take effect immediately.

If you use government money …federal, state, or city….to fund any part of a program, you cannot discriminate based on race, religion, sexual orientation, age, gender or disability.
As students in charter schools receive busing, breakfast and lunches and NYSTL (book) money, the charters are using government money. Ergo, outright discrimination is forbidden. The more insidious type of discrimination by omission can be addressed by DOE compliance.