Dive Brief:
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The Portland Press Herald reports that over 20% of enrollment in Maine's seven charter schools is comprised of special ed students, as opposed to 10% nationwide — and though it's not clear why, charter advocates point to smaller class sizes, fresh starts for struggling students, and greater opportunity for personalized and non-traditional learning.
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Maine's charters are different from many in other states because they're extensively regulated by the Maine Charter Commission, which "conducts exhaustive reviews before approving a school, and regular follow-up, on-site visits."
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This higher ratio of special ed students results in more financial strain for the charters, since they can't draw upon funds from Maine's taxpayers in the same way traditional public schools can.
Dive Insight:
In the state, charters received a set amount of per-pupil funding, with an extra 15% of padding for those students who require special ed. One of the potential attractions to the charters might be the fact that they create personalized learning plans for all enrolled students, not just special ed students — meaning that those students may feel less different than their peers within the charters.
Elsewhere, charters have sometimes been accused of not providing the same access to students with special needs. A recent study by the Center for Reinventing Public Education and the Manhattan Institute examined some of the longstanding allegations of charter schools cherry-picking potentially higher-performing students upon admission, looking to pinpoint why and how special ed students might be left out of charters in New York City specifically. Historically, charters have served a lower percentage of special needs students than traditional schools.
The study's author, Marcus A. Winters, found that parents of students with special needs "are less likely to choose to apply to charter schools, especially autistic students and students with a speech or language disability… (Yet) charter schooling itself significantly reduces the chances that a student is designated as needing special education services, particularly in the category of specific learning disability."
Winters says that a gap exists, in part, because of the simple fact that more traditionally special ed students are mixed into classrooms inside charters, while if they were at traditional schools, they'd likely be sequestered into special programs.