Enrollment of students with disabilities in charter schools: Contemporary national and state level findings

Abstract

There is no national study examining the rate of enrollment of students with disabilities in charter schools. We examined whether students with disabilities were significantly less likely to enroll in charter schools as compared to non-charter public schools accounting for state level variation using data for the entire national population. We utilized data from the Civil Rights Data Collection under the U.S. Department of Education for the 2011-2012 and 2013-2014 academic years. These nationwide and contemporary data provided school-level numbers of students with disabilities receiving special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and charter school status. We performed hierarchical linear modeling to examine for differences in the percentages of students with disabilities under IDEA between charter and non-charter schools, which revealed significantly less students with disabilities enrolled in charter schools at the national and state level. Additionally, we identified and ranked states according to the degree of discrepancy in the percentages of students with disabilities under IDEA between charter and non-charter schools.

Choice, Mobility, and Classification: Disaggregating the Charter School Special Education Gap

“…First, our analyses focused on one urban district. Many urban areas have large charter school sectors (Wang et al, 2019), but the present findings likely do not generalize to areas without a large charter presence, and there is substantial variation in the SPED gap by state (Barnard-Brak et al, 2018). However, the richness of the available data from Newark that allows for us to appropriately address selection bias providing a contribution to the field despite limited generalizability.…”

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Charter schools often have lower enrollments of students with disabilities (SWD; i.e., students who receive special education services) than traditional public schools in the surrounding district (Barnard-Brak et al, 2018; United States Government Accountability Office [USGAO], 2012). Researchers and advocates frequently point to this "special education enrollment gap" (from here "SPED gap") as evidence that charter schools do not educate all students and may violate their legal obligation under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (Estes, 2004; USGAO, 2012).However, determining that charter schools systematically fail to serve SWD requires not only documenting the existence of the SPED gap but also understanding the factors underlying why the gap exists.

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School autonomy and educational inclusion of children with special needs: Evidence from England

“…We should be careful with direct cross‐national comparisons, but despite the differences between academies in England and US charter schools, the results of our study can be related to some US studies. Barnard‐Brak et al () found significantly fewer pupils with disabilities in charter schools, at the national and state level. Winters et al () showed that charter schools, compared to district schools, reduced the classification of disability in Denver primary‐aged children; but mostly for learning disability (a high‐incidence, and sometimes contested, category) and not autism or speech or language disability (often seen to have more objective classification criteria).…”

“…Improved performance may be achieved at the expense of socially disadvantaged children, and children with disabilities, who may be directly or indirectly excluded from the new types of school. Barnard‐Brak et al () found significantly fewer pupils with disabilities in charter schools, as compared with traditional public schools, at the national and state levels, between 2011 and 2014. Winters () argued that in New York and Denver, this gap arises at the kindergarten level rather than when pupils are at school, as pupils with disabilities are less likely to apply to attend a charter school.…”

Publicwashing in Education: Definition, Motives, and Manifestations

“…Such commitment is a behavioral characteristic of public schools, relating to their public goals. For example, Barnard-Brak et al (2018) found that there are significantly fewer students with disabilities enrolled in charter schools than in public schools at the national and state levels, and Haber (2021) found that charter schools select the best performers in the race- and class-specific niche they seek to attract. There are also substantial concerns relating to racial and class segregation in charter schools (e.g., Riel et al, 2018).…”