You might want to remember this statistic the next time you hear a Reformer claim that charter schools enroll the same demographic as public schools.
In Detroit, the public schools are 22 times more likely to enroll children with autism than are charter schools.
The charter schools have to protect their test scores, so they don’t want those children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I found this article disturbing. It seems to me that the sole reason for charters in Detroit is so they can skim the easiest, least expensive students to educate, and use the pubic schools to handle their rejected students including the expensive sub-groups like autistic students. Why do they have a system in which students can be included on charter rolls, but the autistic students attend district schools? Do the taxpayers have to pay the charter for non-services rendered? What this shows is that charters have little value if they serve only the best students. Charters skim students and public money, decrease the efficiency public schools and dilute the resources for the other public school students.
“The audit argues that educational programming for all students fell by the wayside over decades of financial crises and declining enrollment.” Part of the financial crisis in the schools was due to public money going into private bank accounts and leaving the public schools with stranded costs and the neediest students to educate.
Exactly: Part of the financial crisis in the schools was due to public money going into private bank accounts and leaving the public schools with stranded costs and the neediest students to educate.
Charters want the most profitable and easiest students to teach. So do the promoters computer-centric education with online delivery of algorithmic content marketed as if “personalized.” While some special education students can be profit centers, charters also need to protect their image of producing great metrics, especially scores on standardized tests.
Funny. We have learned not to trust advertising claims because we know it’s just advertising. But the public is gullible when it comes to the claims of charters and vouchers.
Dear Retired Teacher– We in Michigan were early adopters of free n’ easy charter laws, and more than 4/5 of our charters are for-profit. Charter operators went after the ‘low-hanging fruit’ first–urban areas with high poverty levels where test scores were low. Technically, they’re supposed to take everyone, but they use a wide variety of excuses–not enough room, no appropriate programming, not a ‘good fit’ for our mission–to turn kids away.
So if you want to know what the future of charter schools looks like, look no further than Michigan. When there were just a handful of charter schools, it was easy for parents to make an alternative ‘choice’ and feel good about their children having access to something special, something other kids in public school didn’t have. It was easy to see removing your child from a school where there were children in poverty, or children of a different color, as ‘choice.’
But now, we know the truth.
The only public schools that are selective in their enrollment are Detroit Public Schools- Renaissance, Cass Tech, School for Fine & Performing Arts, Communication & Media Arts. As for the cherry-picked headline that children with autism are 22 times more likely to attend a (traditional) public, this is explained in the article itself which notes that DPS is part of a consortium (through the intermediate school district) that delivers services to children from several districts. In other words, they choose to enroll where the program exists. You might find that football players are 22 times more likely to enroll in a Detroit Public School, again, because that is where the program exists.
You may also wish to know that charters schools educate children ate a significantly lower cost to the public than DPS does, and that every charter school is a non-profit entity. To characterize them as operating “for profit,” is about as fair as characterizing the DPS schools as operating “for the unions.”
More than 80% of the charter schools in Michigan operate for profit. Are you suggesting that none of the many charters in Detroit are for-profit?
The bigger thing here is of course the whole focus of the deforms: the monitoring and decisions based on testing, privatization and corporate job skills.
This isn’t no child left behind, this is leave childhood and humanity behind. This isn’t education. It’s workforce preparation and whitewashing, socioeconomic cleansing.
Not all charter schools have the facilities or staff to deal with special needs children. Not all public schools do either. In Douglas County Colorado, the public school system was not able to provide properly for a special-needs child. The Supreme Court ruled that the child was entitled to proper care/instruction/facilities at a non-public school, and that the public school system had to pay the costs.
See Endrew F. v. Douglas County
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individuals_with_Disabilities_Education_Act#Endrew_F._v._Douglas_County_School_District
The cost of the child in Douglas County was $50,000 a year. No voucher will pay that.
The public school system, is providing the entire cost for the individual. The public school system did not have facilities/staff to provide the proper services. The child is receiving more funds, than the standard per-pupil expenditure. You could call it “voucher-plus”.
Personally, I am glad that the child is getting the educational services, that are appropriate to his needs. The child will thrive.
There is a definite societal benefit, in seeing that all children, from the disabled, to the gifted/talented receive the educational services that are most appropriate to their individual situation.
This is definitely a “win-win” situation.
As for the cherry-picked headline that children with autism are 22 times more likely to attend a (traditional) public, this is explained in the article itself which notes that DPS is part of a consortium (through the intermediate school district) that delivers services to children from several districts. In other words, families of autistic children choose to enroll where the program exists. You might find that football players are 22 times more likely to enroll in a Detroit Public School, again, because that is where the program exists.
You may also wish to know that charters schools educate children at a significantly lower cost to the public than DPS does, and that every charter school is a non-profit entity. To characterize them as operating “for profit,” is about as fair as characterizing the DPS schools as operating “for the unions.”