The NEA recounts the story told by Amanda Ciede, a mother of a child with special-needs in Malden, Massachusetts. She signed up her five-year-old son for a charter school. His experience was a disaster. He was repeatedly suspended. When his mother realized the harm inflicted on him by constant negative reinforcement, she withdrew him and enrolled him in the neighborhood public school where he is getting the services he needs as well as regular consultations between family and teachers. She is now working to defeat Question 2, which would increase the number of charters in Massachusetts.

The mother said:

“He never felt like he could succeed. He was always being told no and you have to stay in your seat,” said Ceide. “When you’re constantly being told no, as a five-year-old, you’re not getting the positive reinforcement you need to feel successful and that you’re a good person.”

In Massachusetts, charter schools are not legally required to hire licensed teachers or anyone formally trained in early, secondary, or special education. Ceide believes the school was not equipped to adequately educate and nurture her son.

“It went from him not staying in his seat to him screaming at the top of his lungs because he doesn’t know what else to do,” said Ceide. “He was being put into a small room, the ‘time-out room’, and he’d be screaming and clawing the space. Then he’d get suspended.”

Certain charter schools in Massachusetts are notorious for their high suspension rates:

The average suspension rate for schools is Massachusetts is 2.9 percent. However, at several charter schools within the state, the rate is much higher, and suspensions are disproportionately directed at disabled and minority students.

For example, the Roxbury Preparatory Charter suspended 40 percent of its students last year, including 57.8 percent of students with disabilities and 43.5 percent of black students. The City on a Hill Charter School in New Bedford suspended 35.4 percent of its students, including 50 percent of students with disabilities and 52.9 percent of black students.

(Secretary of Education John King was one of the founders of Roxbury Preparatory Charter, where he was co-director for five years and developed its curriculum and rules of behavior. He subsequently joined Uncommon Schools, one of the nation’s “no excuses” charter chains, which is noted for its strict discipline.)