7 ms·

In my area charter schools game the system to not deal with special needs kids and make them leave the charters. Many basically avoid doing evaluations and IEPs

In my area charter schools game the system to not deal with special needs kids and make them leave the charters. Many basically avoid doing evaluations and IEPs entirely so they can force them to go back to public schools. The highest achieving charters have also been able to get mediocre non IEP kids to transfer back by setting them up to have trouble keeping up and not supporting them when they struggle. Edit: And on the lower-performing side, you have schools focused on religion and/or patriotism, which tend to be less concerned about getting low performers out, but which aren't based as much around effective academics so much as ideology, and which do not meet the civic bar for education. Though I've also seen some that are just there to basically act like the charter equivalent of for-profit colleges: give parents in low SES areas a message of hope and then just minimize costs in the classroom.

rahimnathwani 2y ago
I'd love to read more about this. Would you mind sharing any examples of either type, that I can Google to read more?
- Glyptodon 2y ago
  Older sources: https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/020515_charter_schools_op/the-secret-behind-those-highly-performing-charter-schools/ https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/020515_charter... https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/2017/12/14/report-some-arizona-charter-schools-unlawfully-exclude-deter-student/942947001/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education... https://harvardpolitics.com/arizonas-experiment-with-charter-schools/ https://harvardpolitics.com/arizonas-experiment-with-charter... https://www.12news.com/article/news/education/az-public-school-districts-are-picking-up-the-tab-for-esa-special-needs-evaluations/75-7972b101-1962-412a-9a82-9ba1cbd3cdae https://www.12news.com/article/news/education/az-public-scho... https://azmirror.com/2024/06/06/it-costs-arizona-332m-to-pay-for-vouchers-subsidizing-private-school-tuition-homeschooling/ https://azmirror.com/2024/06/06/it-costs-arizona-332m-to-pay... https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2023/11/17/arizona-taxpayers-pay-lego-esa-school-voucher/71621338007/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/... I also have numerous acquaintances working in various capacities in schools (public, charter, and private) and have to say I regard all the things mentioned in the linked articles as severely under-reported. Retaliation against teachers and staff who try to get kids services at charters is a thing. Public school districts and counties having to foot evaluation costs for parochials is a thing. Refusing and avoiding evaluations for kids in charters so they can be kicked out for behavior and then the publics have to foot the evaluation costs is a thing. I completely think if local districts (and/or families) had a spine or the right legal resources they could be suing charters who've not even tried to follow or service existing IEPs left and right when those kids are constantly enrolling in publics mid year (with those kids generally exhibiting broad spectrums declines against academic and IEP goals).
  - rahimnathwani 2y ago
    If this (charter schools pushing students out) is true it's terrible, and I agree it would be great if the threat of legal action could eliminate it. Sadly, when the risk of enforcement is low, many administrators will ignore the law. (This applies to government-run orgs as well.)
    - ANewFormation 2y ago
      Why is this a bad thing? Its possible I'm missing some nuance because I have not dealt with the US education system in a long time, but I think one fundamental problem with universal education is that one really bad student can easily ruin the education of dozens of others. If anything, there should be some sort of behavioral/educational reform schools, probably operated in something closer to a military fashion, to help out not only these kids, but the countless others who they'd otherwise be disrupting. This issue is one (of many) for why if I did decide to have my children go to school in the US it would be at a high performing private school. I'd actually prefer they have the less bubbly experience of public school, but I'm not willing to tolerate having their classes disrupted by kids who are just bee-lining to jail anyhow. I had that upbringing and I think it substantially delayed my 'educational maturity'.
      - zxcvbnm69 2y ago
        [dead]
      - miningape 2y ago
        Exactly, ~10-15 years ago Denmark decided to start integrating "problem" children into the regular classroom and scores have dropped across the board. Currently private education enrolment has been massively on the rise since private schools are not forced to accept these kids, and/or they can more easily kick children out. What's really sad is that now the parents are not only paying extremely high taxes to cover the standard school, but now also are having to shell out extra to make sure their child gets the eduction they deserve. Why this is shocking is that Denmark (the whole nordics) has an extremely strong public education tradition which is being very quickly eroded. Just 20 years ago private education was seen as something for the elites (e.g. Royalty) but now it's becoming an expected expense. Almost everyone is frustrated by this: teachers, parents, students, as well as their special needs counterparts. The only people winning are the politicians who get to morally grandstand.
rendang 2y ago
> schools focused on religion and/or patriotism Being from Arizona and having some experience with the charter schools there, I'm curious which ones you have in mind
- Glyptodon 2y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hearts_Academies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hearts_Academies Note that their "officially" Christian schools are private: https://christos.greatheartsamerica.org/ https://christos.greatheartsamerica.org/ So in theory their charters are more secular, but they're going to get as far up on the line as they can. I have (a not close) relative who is sending his kid to a different charter where their whole website is about how much patriotism and flag rah rah is in the curriculum and how they adhere to traditional gender roles, but for the life of me I can't remember the name.
  - Glyptodon 2y ago
    https://ahacottonwood.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=453368&type=d https://ahacottonwood.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=453368&t... Another chain focused on God and "Patriotism"
- FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
  In Arizona... probably Brophy
  - Glyptodon 2y ago
    Places like https://ahacottonwood.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=453368&type=d https://ahacottonwood.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=453368&t...
graemep 2y ago
> on the lower-performing side, you have schools focused on religion That is an interesting contrast with the British equivalent. Religious schools are generally academically much better, so much so that people lie about their religion (and start turning up to church etc.) to get in (IIRC it is a condition of state funding that a minimum proportion of students are followers of the religion).
- giantg2 2y ago
  My experience in the US has been similar - most religious schools had higher performance than most public schools. Even the grading systems reflected the higher standards by using a 7 point scale rather than a 10 point scale. None of the religious schools I heard of had the "no zero" policies like some of the public schools where you get an automatic minimum 50% score just for writing your name on the test. I'm sure there are outliers in either school type, but categorizing religious schools as lower performing doesn't to fit my experiences at all.
  - mannykannot 2y ago
    It depends on whether the focus is on spreading knowledge or preserving doctrine. Most religious schools I know are solidly in the former category, but I suspect there are exceptions.
    - giantg2 2y ago
      This seems like a false dichotomy to me. They can do both. We could look at SAT scores, which show religious schools having significantly higher scores than public schools. So clearly they are learning the material.
      - fellowniusmonk 2y ago
        In what now feels like a past life I knew a guy who had a perfect SAT score, I met him while visiting a family member who was his roommate at Patrick Henry College in VA. He believed radio carbon dating was a lie and the earth was literally ~5k years old. There are confounding factors that SAT scores don't surface.

rahimnathwani 2y ago

I'd love to read more about this. Would you mind sharing any examples of either type, that I can Google to read more?

Glyptodon 2y ago
Older sources: https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/020515_charter_schools_op/the-secret-behind-those-highly-performing-charter-schools/ https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/020515_charter... https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/2017/12/14/report-some-arizona-charter-schools-unlawfully-exclude-deter-student/942947001/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education... https://harvardpolitics.com/arizonas-experiment-with-charter-schools/ https://harvardpolitics.com/arizonas-experiment-with-charter... https://www.12news.com/article/news/education/az-public-school-districts-are-picking-up-the-tab-for-esa-special-needs-evaluations/75-7972b101-1962-412a-9a82-9ba1cbd3cdae https://www.12news.com/article/news/education/az-public-scho... https://azmirror.com/2024/06/06/it-costs-arizona-332m-to-pay-for-vouchers-subsidizing-private-school-tuition-homeschooling/ https://azmirror.com/2024/06/06/it-costs-arizona-332m-to-pay... https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2023/11/17/arizona-taxpayers-pay-lego-esa-school-voucher/71621338007/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/... I also have numerous acquaintances working in various capacities in schools (public, charter, and private) and have to say I regard all the things mentioned in the linked articles as severely under-reported. Retaliation against teachers and staff who try to get kids services at charters is a thing. Public school districts and counties having to foot evaluation costs for parochials is a thing. Refusing and avoiding evaluations for kids in charters so they can be kicked out for behavior and then the publics have to foot the evaluation costs is a thing. I completely think if local districts (and/or families) had a spine or the right legal resources they could be suing charters who've not even tried to follow or service existing IEPs left and right when those kids are constantly enrolling in publics mid year (with those kids generally exhibiting broad spectrums declines against academic and IEP goals).
- rahimnathwani 2y ago
  If this (charter schools pushing students out) is true it's terrible, and I agree it would be great if the threat of legal action could eliminate it. Sadly, when the risk of enforcement is low, many administrators will ignore the law. (This applies to government-run orgs as well.)
  - ANewFormation 2y ago
    Why is this a bad thing? Its possible I'm missing some nuance because I have not dealt with the US education system in a long time, but I think one fundamental problem with universal education is that one really bad student can easily ruin the education of dozens of others. If anything, there should be some sort of behavioral/educational reform schools, probably operated in something closer to a military fashion, to help out not only these kids, but the countless others who they'd otherwise be disrupting. This issue is one (of many) for why if I did decide to have my children go to school in the US it would be at a high performing private school. I'd actually prefer they have the less bubbly experience of public school, but I'm not willing to tolerate having their classes disrupted by kids who are just bee-lining to jail anyhow. I had that upbringing and I think it substantially delayed my 'educational maturity'.
    - zxcvbnm69 2y ago
      [dead]
    - miningape 2y ago
      Exactly, ~10-15 years ago Denmark decided to start integrating "problem" children into the regular classroom and scores have dropped across the board. Currently private education enrolment has been massively on the rise since private schools are not forced to accept these kids, and/or they can more easily kick children out. What's really sad is that now the parents are not only paying extremely high taxes to cover the standard school, but now also are having to shell out extra to make sure their child gets the eduction they deserve. Why this is shocking is that Denmark (the whole nordics) has an extremely strong public education tradition which is being very quickly eroded. Just 20 years ago private education was seen as something for the elites (e.g. Royalty) but now it's becoming an expected expense. Almost everyone is frustrated by this: teachers, parents, students, as well as their special needs counterparts. The only people winning are the politicians who get to morally grandstand.

rendang 2y ago

> schools focused on religion and/or patriotism Being from Arizona and having some experience with the charter schools there, I'm curious which ones you have in mind

Glyptodon 2y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hearts_Academies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hearts_Academies Note that their "officially" Christian schools are private: https://christos.greatheartsamerica.org/ https://christos.greatheartsamerica.org/ So in theory their charters are more secular, but they're going to get as far up on the line as they can. I have (a not close) relative who is sending his kid to a different charter where their whole website is about how much patriotism and flag rah rah is in the curriculum and how they adhere to traditional gender roles, but for the life of me I can't remember the name.
- Glyptodon 2y ago
  https://ahacottonwood.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=453368&type=d https://ahacottonwood.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=453368&t... Another chain focused on God and "Patriotism"
FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
In Arizona... probably Brophy
- Glyptodon 2y ago
  Places like https://ahacottonwood.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=453368&type=d https://ahacottonwood.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=453368&t...

graemep 2y ago

> on the lower-performing side, you have schools focused on religion That is an interesting contrast with the British equivalent. Religious schools are generally academically much better, so much so that people lie about their religion (and start turning up to church etc.) to get in (IIRC it is a condition of state funding that a minimum proportion of students are followers of the religion).

giantg2 2y ago
My experience in the US has been similar - most religious schools had higher performance than most public schools. Even the grading systems reflected the higher standards by using a 7 point scale rather than a 10 point scale. None of the religious schools I heard of had the "no zero" policies like some of the public schools where you get an automatic minimum 50% score just for writing your name on the test. I'm sure there are outliers in either school type, but categorizing religious schools as lower performing doesn't to fit my experiences at all.
- mannykannot 2y ago
  It depends on whether the focus is on spreading knowledge or preserving doctrine. Most religious schools I know are solidly in the former category, but I suspect there are exceptions.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    This seems like a false dichotomy to me. They can do both. We could look at SAT scores, which show religious schools having significantly higher scores than public schools. So clearly they are learning the material.
    - fellowniusmonk 2y ago
      In what now feels like a past life I knew a guy who had a perfect SAT score, I met him while visiting a family member who was his roommate at Patrick Henry College in VA. He believed radio carbon dating was a lie and the earth was literally ~5k years old. There are confounding factors that SAT scores don't surface.