Michael Robinson, a parent of children with disabilities, has compiled state data on charter schools in Massachusetts and students with disabilities.
The facts are shocking and should be an embarrassment to the charter industry.
Here are just a few of those facts, from official data:
25% of Massachusetts charter schools have zero full-time special educators, as compared to only 3% of public schools.
Public schools report one special-education teacher for every 22 students with disabilities, charters report one special-education teacher for every 36 students with disabilities.
67% of the “districts” with the lowest service to students with disabilities are charter schools.
Students with disabilities enrolled in charter schools are three times as likely to be disciplined as students in public schools (14% vs. 5%).
91.3% of the districts with the highest rates of disciplinary actions for students with disabilities are charter schools.
Students with disabilities are 2.4 times more likely to be suspended at charter schools than at public schools.
80% of the districts with the highest rates of suspension/expulsion of students with disabilities are charter schools.
If you are a parent of a child with disabilities, forget about sending him or her to a charter school. They are not wanted, they will not have a teacher who has appropriate training and certification, and they are likely to be suspended or expelled.
These schools do not provide a free and appropriate education for students with disabilities. Why do their advocates call them “public”? Why are they allowed to ignore federal law protecting these students? John King founded one of the harshest of the “no-excuses” charter schools in Massachusetts. Is he now ignoring the abuse of federal law by other charter schools in Massachusetts?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These are vital and hard to get stats on a state or a national level. The report is a great model for anyone else who has the stamina and drive to expose this aspect of the charter industry.
Reblogged this on DelawareFirstState and commented:
Massachusetts: Charter Schools Neglect and Exclude Students with Disabilities
Parents need to organize. Parents of standing need to file an OCR complaint. An OCR complaint should get someone to pay attention. Public schools can not discriminate on grounds of disability. They need to offer FAPE.
Diane, thank you for sharing this important information with people.
Note that questionable individuals are already having the predictable response to this material.
There are three key differences between my data analysis and the pro charter data analysis:
1. I use commonsense metrics to measure special education performance in charter schools
2. My research was not bought by anyone, much less an industry which stands to profit from my work.
3. All of my data is available to anyone who wishes to verify my analysis.
For anyone with the interest and the time, simply go to (http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/) and you can see the data yourself. I even tell the reader how to perform their calculation in my report.
My report is clear, the data verifiable using publicly available data from the Massachusetts Department of elementary and secondary education. I am certain that some fuzzy explanation of “why the data is wrong” will now be projected forward by those who seek to profit by continuing I campaign of punishment against children with disabilities. They may even go so far as to say the number is that the charter schools themselves provided to the state must be wrong.
Either way, I can sleep easily tonight knowing that I did my best to provide true, accurate, and meaningful information so people can make an informed decision on ballot question two in Massachusetts.
Thank you again for helping get out of this important information.
Mike
“I use commonsense metrics to measure special education performance in charter schools.”
No, you don’t Mike!
“I use commonsense metrics to assess special education performance in charter schools” is more accurate and true to correct language usage.
One cannot measure “special education performance” as there is no agreed upon standard unit of “special education performance”, no exemplar of that unit of measure, no device calibrated against that exemplar and no one trained in using that non-existent measuring devise of said non-existent unit of measure.
Using the measurement meme only serves to confuse and obfuscate by lending a false sense of accuracy and “scientificity” to the assessment process.
I hope the pro charter lobby is paying you enough for the price of your soul, if you ever had one.
Go find a different bridge.
“¿Qué te pasa a ti?
Nope, never had a soul. No one has one despite many folk’s protestations otherwise.
How the hell did you get a pro charter rant out of my statement about the misuse of the meaning of measuring? You certainly have me baffled with that one.
How can charters be expected to have enough money left over to generously pay their CEOs and top administrators if they have to spend any of it to educate kids who aren’t going to give them the bragging rights that will earn them the extras that they can only get by drumming out low-performing children? You really think billionaire hedge funders and the Walton Family would countenance spending a penny on the kids who they deem unworthy of a good education? It’s all about the public relations and it has been all about the public relations since the big charter chains realized that if they threw some of the kids under the bus, they’d be handsomely rewarded by pretending those kids were just so violent (even at age 6) that they NEEDED to be thrown under that bus. They should be praised for it!
That’s what makes a charter “excellent” in the eyes of the faux reformers like Robert Pondiscio. It’s not how they educate ALL children — it’s their skill in choosing which kids are worthy of their education and their willingness to throw the rest under the bus. It’s a feature, not a bug and the charters that are best at it are the ones who are praised the most. And if reformers like Pondiscio and friends have their way, ALL charters will follow the “best practices” of the charters he admires the most and become skilled at separating the worthy children from the unworthy.
Newsflash: Children with disabilities are unworthy to charter schools unless they are one of those coveted children whose mild disability allows them to be a high-scoring wonderkind. After all, if they were worthy, according to reformers like Pondiscio and his friends, they would be able to get over their disability right away. They are just slackers and should be humiliated and punished until they act out and can be labeled violent. As Pondiscio and his friends in the reform movement note — the highest performing charter schools ALWAYS seem to attract the most violent 5 and 6 year old children. It’s pretty incredible that so many dedicated parents who want high performing charters raised such violent children, but that’s what those HONEST charter COEs keep telling us is going on and Pondiscio and his friends say “no one ever better question it because we know it’s true”.
Fortunately, Pondiscio and his friends are quick to recognize those children’s unworthiness and that’s a good thing in the eyes of the people who love charters the most. Why waste any money on a kid who won’t be a credit to his charter school? After all, when it comes to choosing between billionaires and kids, Pondiscio knows the kids are always expendable. That’s what makes those charter folks so admirable — their willingness to sacrifice those unworthy children for the sake of the worthy ones.
Hear! Hear!
This is pathetic, charters do so much good for all groups of students: English language learners, low-income students, and special needs students. A 2015 study from MIT concluded, “Even the most disadvantaged special needs students benefit from charter attendance” (http://economics.mit.edu/files/12050). Furthermore, you can see that the rate of each of these demographics at charter schools is considerably higher than the state average and the rate of special needs students is lower by a negligible margin (see page 8: http://www.doe.mass.edu/research/reports/2016/02CharterReport.pdf). If special needs students are disciplined more at charters it can only be because they have higher expectations for these students and they are not going to let them slip through the cracks.
Charters in Massachusetts are made specifically to help struggling demographics that are consistently let down by public schools. According to the Pioneer Institute for public policy research, English language learners perform nearly twice as well at Boston charters than at the public schools (http://pioneerinstitute.org/featured/study-massachusetts-charters-enrolling-english-language-learners/attachment/performance/).
Charter schools are doing amazing things to close all kinds of achievement gaps and to say that there is some type of evil conspiracy to ruin disadvantaged students is nothing farther from the truth.
If what you were saying had a grain of truth, then parents would never leave high performing charter schools unless they moved away. Never. Especially if they had originally sought out that school for their kid precisely because they wanted a better school than the public school. Because those are exactly the parents who care MOST about education. The racists who keep insisting that parents — because they are low-income minorities — would willingly pull their child from a school that they specifically sought out that was working miracles for their child are hoping that other racists will agree so that all oversight can be quashed. That’s why they hate what the NAACP did in asking merely for transparency in charters where kids disappear.
You’d never get away with that if you were talking about white college educated parents. Show me a high performing school where white college educated parents are desperate to get their kids admitted but then large cohorts of the parents who enroll then turn around and pull their child from the school for a far worse school. You can’t. Because if there were such a school, everyone would be investigating it to see what was going on that so many parents were choosing a much worse school instead of staying. The attrition rate for high performing public schools is near zero except for families moving away. The attrition rate for high performing charter schools is extraordinarily high.
But racists assume that less educated minority parents who leave the supposedly top-performing miracle working charters that they specifically sought out for their children are just ignorant folks who decided their child should be punished by being in a bad school instead of the wonderful charter he won a spot in. Those charter loving folks would prefer to lie and tell us how ignorant and stupid those minority parents are (or how violent their 5 year old children are) than acknowledge that their beloved charters are doing something wrong. Because to those racists, those charters are doing something right! Dumping the unworthy kids who they believe are trash that deserves nothing. Not because it just happens to be very profitable for the people who run charters. Nope, those charters don’t dump those kids because of profits. They just do it because they get a lot of pleasure in making those unworthy children and their parents feel like losers. And they say “hey, this kid is happy so why would you care about the child we treated like garbage to get him out of our school?” He is NOT worthy of your concern. Only the kids we deem worthy count and the rest are invisible and can rot.”
And you wonder why I find the lying charter school promoters so truly appalling. Their belief that we should never care about the kids who leave charters, just the ones who stay in charters. They are the only ones who matter.
“But racists assume. . . ”
You can do better than that NYCpsp.
I have been seeing the “racist” epithet used quite a bit more lately. Perhaps that increase is due to the nature of our presidential politics as currently constituted. Or perhaps it is due to a backlash from those who have been historically marginalized, but that group includes members from all “races”.
Just today on fb I read something about “All whites are racists” and that they need to be educated and cured of their inherent hidden racism. Hogwash!
Sorry, Duane, but I call out racism when I see it. Never did I say that all whites are racists. But what else do you call it when you insist that there is no need to investigate why so many non-white students would leave the highest performing charter school in the state? When every single one of those children’s parents chose that school precisely because of its high performance?
Just non-white parents doing what non-white parents do and leaving top schools because they prefer terrible ones instead? No need to think there ‘s any pressure on them. Their child is welcomed and treated with respect, and yet those non-white parents decided “nope, can’t have my child in a fantastic school with more money than most privates to lavish on him — gotta pull him for that underfunded public school”?
Nothing to look at here, folks. No racism here. Just people trying to convince us that those minority parents just don’t like great charters doing everything they can to make their child thrive!
It’s like Black Lives Matter. The problem is that if you assume most African-American teens are violent, you accept without question any police shooting of unarmed teens and say “how dare you investigate”.
And if you assume lots of non-white parents hate good school, you accept without question so many of them pulling their children from them and say “how dare you investigate”.
“Charter schools are doing amazing things to close all kinds of achievement gaps”
Please explain what you mean by closing “all kinds of achievement gaps”.
And those amazing things are many times considered to be educational malpractices by conscientious teachers.
The MIT report relies on the same underlying DESE databases I used. If there are to be assertions that my source data is invalid, it means so is the MIT study.
I am not anti-charter. There are some good charters I would assume and I am glad you had a positive experience. Since these are independent entities my analysis isolates the charters which employ fewer SPED teachers, enroll and retain fewer SWD and use disproportionately higher discipline rates against disabled children.
That said, 48 of the 74 commonwealth charter schools appear in my report at least once. 65% are among the state’s worst performers in these metrics.
No to all of this…
And no on question 2
To charter alumni that is…
In the 1960s there were like why is plenty of “studies” paid for by big tobacco that show that smoking was heartless. Likewise, today there are many funded reports from pro charter academic groups which have been heavily funded by charter venture funds. Not surprisingly, these academic institutions are publishing reports that show or attempt to show the great benefits of a charter school. However, the populations for these comparisons are invalid because they are so different between charter and traditional public. Most children who are “disabled” @charter schools have mild disabilities at best whereas traditional public schools accept all children regardless of severity of disability. Please see p27 of the New School VENTURE FUND report which lists the MIT report under its list of “investments.”
So to sum up,
Yes, there are several charter-funded reports which not surprisingly support pro-charter objectives
These reports use cherrypicked data, have very different populations compared to public school
My report uses the data AS PROVIDED BY THE CHARTERS TO DESE. Kinda sucks when your self-reported data doesn’t match the shiny PR materials, but why should they concern themselves with honesty and decency now?
Mike
Link to the NEW SCHOOL VENTURE FUND shareholder report here http://www.newschools.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/NewSchools-Boston-End-of-Fund-Report.pdf
Charter charter charter charter that is all we hear about yet these fake bastards are the parasites of society sucking away at our overall effectiveness of educating our youth. Remember people when there is money to be made people will go to any extreme, lying, manipulating, changing, stressing, accusing, hiding, pretending and the list goes on and on. Money is the ROOT to all evil and money is at the root here because true educators know that these so called “charter schools” are a complete sham for parasites to suck monies from our public schools and any where else. Charter schools have long been the minor leagues to public schools and now the minor leagues want to become the big leagues but with minor league players. The country’s greatest and brightest educators are concentrated in public schools and no where else. Yes, private schools employ some great educators but think about it the most talented human beings in this country who are educators are in public schools!!! Teachers, guidance counselors, social workers, special education teachers, para professionals – one can find the best of the best in our public schools!!! The charter schools are trying to convince everyone that their schools are superior using 1 or 2 year educators!! And, the best part is that most of the charter school educators leave after a year or two realizing the sham and the petty pay let alone no pensions or medical or nothing…….yet these charter school parasites want everyone to think that charter schools – or minor league schools are on the same field as the major leagues….not so….and any intelligent person who focuses just a bit would see this after the smoke and mirrors make for a clear vision.
IDEA school, a charter chain that wants to move into El Paso, has one diagnostician for over 25,000 students.
Update: Predictably, pro-charter folks are complaining that my report is using flawed data from Dept of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Unfortunately for them, the oft-cited pro-charter reports from MIT and Harvard sourced their data from the same underlying DESE databases as I used. They cannot reject my report’s accuracy without undermining their own precious reports.
Thanks for all the support. For all the detractors, the data is clear and the truth is getting out.
Thanks,
Mike
My family’s experience (and that of many others) reflects these findings.
Public schools can’t drum out children without remaining entirely responsible for the cost of their education. wherever they are taught.
Charter schools who drum out children absolve themselves of financial responsibility forever.
Anyone who doesn’t understand why that makes all the difference is being dishonest.
Mike,
The data you include in your analysis is from DESE but your data showing that many charters have zero special education teachers is incorrect. Although the wording on the Profile page for each district – Teachers in Program Area” – does sound like it is the count of special education teachers at the school, it doesn’t actually mean that.
The way the data is collected from schools, the EPIMS data, those numbers seem to identify only “teachers of record” rather than all teachers. In other words, they appear to be only a count of special educators who are the sole teacher for a subject or class of students. This would primarily mean teachers in sub-separate programs. Since charter schools have few such programs, and even most students with moderate special needs are in full inclusion programs, they could easily have zero Teachers in Program Areas yet still fully service special education students.
This is not to question your data about how many students on IEPs are enrolled in charters, or imply anything about how effectively they are supported. But it is not accurate to say that the charter schools you list don’t have any special ed teachers and therefore are not providing needed services.
Hi, there is a combination of factors. First, it is the data as self-reported by the charters to DESE. The question of why there is a gap between what charters say they staff and what they report to the state can be for several reasons, including the practices we saw at our charter of hiring per-firm substitute teachers to work as paraprofessionals, and having an OT play the role of interim SPED director. To enter highly qualified teacher counts into EPIMS you need to have degrees and certifications which charters do not require unlike traditional public schools.
Teachers are entered into EPIMS whether or not they are highly qualified. It has no effect on how many teachers a district reports works for the district. If they report that a special education teacher is a consulting teacher, which could include one who works in an inclusion classroom though is not a co-teacher, or who provides small group math intervention yet is not the math teacher, that teacher won’t be counted in the Teachers in Program Areas count. That’s why zero in that count does not mean there are no SPED teachers.
Could you please tell me where you received your figures from. As a concerned parent I would like to make informed choices. Thank you. Have a good week.
Hi, my report is here https://saveourpublicschoolsma.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Massachusetts-Charter-School-Special-Education-Performance.pdf. All data is self-reported by the charters to DESE and is available for verification here. http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/ . For convenience, each metric in my report includes a definition, calculation method, and data source. The data source matches to the specific DESE report that you can review on the public site.
Thank you for your interest and concern
Thanks, Mike
All the data is from Mass DESE sources