CRPE’s study looked specifically at New York state’s special education enrollment.  As Robin Lake, Director of CRPE, and Alex Medler, Vice President of policy and advocacy for the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, write in their recent article in Education Week, “The [study’s] results showed a much more complex picture, one that casts doubt on one-size-fits-all policy solutions like quotas or enrollment targets. Any state-level uniform enrollment target is too simple a solution for the complex problems associated with special education enrollments and equal access.”

The study found that rates of special education students served at the middle and high school levels do not vary between charter and traditional schools. It also shows that there is great variation in the number of special education students served on a school-by-school basis, regardless of whether or not it is a traditional or charter school. Schools, whether charter or traditional, may attract a certain population of students based on their reputation and track record with those students, say Lake and Medler.

However, the researchers did find that elementary charter schools do serve an overall lower percentage of students with disabilities, though they “found no obvious reason to think that charter elementary leaders would be more likely to discriminate than charter middle and high school leaders.”

Lake and Medler suggest further research is necessary to fully understand the difference at the elementary school level, though they offer some hypotheses. For example, they ask, “Are charter schools at lower grades less inclined to label kids as having a disability? Or are kids in charter schools less likely to need an individualized educational program (the federally mandated education plan for students identified as having a disability) because of early intervention? Or are specialized preschool programs and counseling services more likely to send students to designated feeder schools in districts?”

Their overall conclusion, however, is that the national data is too broad and not nuanced enough to give charter school policymakers a clear view of how charters schools serve students with special needs. Instead, they suggest looking at individual schools more closely to determine the cause of underenrollement of special education students, as well as working with the community to address the needs of students with special needs attending all schools, charter or traditional.

Read the full article in Education Week.

Last November, Washington voters approved an initiative that allows the creation of up to 40 public charter schools over five years. The first public charter schools in Washington will likely open for the 2014-15 school year.

This is great news for Washington’s students, especially those for whom traditional public schools are not working. Charter schools will provide an opportunity for kids who need a change of direction and a different learning environment, and will be a potential lifeline for parents looking for another public school option for their student’s education.

Charter schools are publicly funded based on student enrollment, free, and open to all students without restriction, and are authorized and overseen by local school boards or a state commission. Public charter schools are independently operated and have the flexibility to tailor curriculum, school hours, budgets, and staffing to the needs of the students and neighborhoods they serve. Washington is the 42nd state to implement charter schools. 

In other states that have charter schools, communities, families, and teachers have embraced the schools for their flexibility and focus on student achievement.

“There’s a lot of freedom, there’s a lot of energy, and there’s a lot of change that’s happening within charter schools that excites me as a teacher,” said Joel Key, who has taught both in a traditional public school and in a charter school in California. “I have seen students succeed and grow in ways that have been incredibly inspiring to me and to the students’ families.”

Since the law was passed in November, the state has made steps toward implementation. In March, Gov. Jay Inslee, Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, and House Speaker Frank Chopp announced their appointments to the state’s Charter School Commission. The nine members named have been appointed to oversee the charter school system, in addition to acting as an authorizing body for charter school applicants in districts that have not become authorizers themselves.

The State Board of Education (SBE) has also been hard at work making sure that the new charter law is implemented faithfully. SBE is tasked with creating an annual application process and timeline for those seeking to start a charter school in Washington.

As progress continues toward opening high quality charter schools in Washington state, the focus must be on ensuring that the new charter law is implemented with fidelity and the highest degree of accountability.

To learn more, visit the Washington Coalition for Public Charter Schools website.

The Commission discussed the timeline to begin accepting charter school applications. The Commissioners also heard two presentations. Robin Lake from the Center on Reinventing Public Education presented on the lessons from charter school research. William Haft from the National Association of Charter School Authorizers presented on charter school authorizing.

The next meeting of the Commission is May 28 at the Technology Access Foundation.

A slide from a presentation given by William Haft with the National Association of Charter School Authorizers

The group also has started to solidify its plans for hiring a staff and choosing the state’s first charter schools. The group held its second meeting Tuesday in Bellevue.

Steve Sundquist, who served on the Seattle School Board from 2007 to 2011, including one year as president and two years as vice president, said Wednesday that the new charter school law and the State Board of Education have set an ambitious agenda for the group.

The group is tentatively scheduled to start accepting applications for charter schools by Sept. 22. The State Board of Education has proposed a fast turnaround on those applications, calling for decisions by the end of January.

Read the full story.

In this video, recorded when she was advocating for Washington to adopt charter school legislation in January 2012, Macy relates her experience as a student in a charter school. She talks about how the school, which drew students from across the city, changed her life compared to her peers.

“I witnessed friends that I went to elementary school with get involved in gang activity, get pregnant, and when we reached high school, even drop out,” she recalls. “Although we all grew up in the same neighborhood, our mentality of what was going to become of our future could not have been further apart.”

She talks about the support she and her peers received at their charter school that led to their success. The school offers more instructional time by increasing the length of the school day and school year; provides intensive graduation and college counseling; and requires honors and AP level coursework. But, Macy says the biggest impact made was by the faculty at her school.

This support had fantastic results. In her class of 102 students, all of whom came from low-income families across San Diego, 100 percent graduated, and 94 percent went on to a college or university.

She says ultimately her experience inspired her to become a teacher and to share the opportunities she had with other students from her background. Her charter school provided her with a great education and, she says, “a great education shouldn’t be the exception—it should be the rule.”

“In order for a school district to approve a charter school, it would need a real assurance that the methodology they will employ at the charter school would be significantly different,” said Kris Mayer, a member of the state Board of Education and Port Townsend resident.

“You can’t do the same thing and expect different results, so they must have some indication that the methodology would produce a different result.”

Mayer said charter schools, which will be run by privately owned nonprofits but receive public per-student funding, are designed to fill gaps in current educational options but must offer specific solutions to these shortcomings.

If 100 students decide to attend a charter school instead of a public school, the per-student state reimbursement would be allocated to the charter school.

Read the full story.

I applaud the Tacoma School Board for signaling an interest in becoming a public charter school authorizer. It’s time that our community learned more about public charter schools.

We need to know how top-performing public charters advance student achievement in other states. We can learn from the best how to raise student achievement for at-risk and low-income students, especially the large share of black and brown students who are struggling academically in Tacoma.

We can debate the merits of public charter schools forever. Meanwhile, our traditional public schools are serving some of our kids well, but clearly not all of our kids:

• Six out of 10 Tacoma students graduate high school in four years
• Six out of 10 Tacoma grads go onto college
• Of those who go to college, many require remedial classes to gain high school math and English skills before they can take college-level courses.

Key education leaders in our city are working hard to improve these numbers. They need a full range of options at hand. The board understands that public charters could be an important part of the mix. Charter schools are not a silver bullet. But, they can disrupt the status quo and drive community-school collaborations that radically raise student achievement.

Read the full op-ed here.

The thirteen districts that applied for authorizer status come from across the state, in both rural and urban communities, with a wide range of student demographics and needs. As the following chart shows, the districts intending to apply are diverse:

School districts accepted as authorizers will be able to select the charter schools they think are best for their district, adding their own criteria for selecting charter management organizations. They will also be responsible for reviewing and holding accountable the charter schools they accept into their district.

Districts who have submitted letters of intent have until July 1 to complete their authorizer applications submit them to SBE. The application includes questions about the district’s vision for what charter schools will accomplish there. It also asks districts to detail their capacity for managing and overseeing charter schools and what criteria they will use to accept, oversee, and, if necessary, revoke charter school authorization.

For more on what steps are next for school districts looking to become charter authorizers, check out the Washington State Charter School Timeline.

On March 21, the school board voted to submit a letter of intent to state officials by the April 1 deadline. The letter is a first step and does not obligate the district to follow through with a complete application to the state Board of Education, which is due July 1.

School board member Rand Wilhelmsen took the lead in wanting to explore the issue before a final decision is made.

“We just put in a page break, if you will,” he said Monday, noting time was a factor in ultimately making a decision on the charter school issue.

Read the full story.

The twelve districts include Bellevue, Battle Ground, Eastmont, Highline, Kent, Naselle-Grays River Valley, Peninsula, Port Townsend, Sequim, Spokane, Sunnyside and Tacoma.

“I think it says there’s an opportunity for four-to-six districts to approve it,” said charter school supporter Jana Carlisle from Partnership 4 Learning. “It’s phenomenal.”

Only eight charter schools can be approved by a nine-member panel every year.

Read the full article >