Good Schools Remove Labels from Students

For the first time ever, Charter School Independent has a pair of guest bloggers. Jon Clark and Kimberly Steadman, principals of the Edward W. Brooke Charter School, have crafted a thorough and well-thought out response to the most recent charter school article in the Globe. Since their piece was too long for publication in the Globe, I'm giving them the floor here:

Jamie Vaznis’s recent article about charter schools (Charter schools lag in serving the neediest - Aug. 12) raises interesting questions about whether schools should be praised for serving a high number of ELL and Special Education students or questioned why they have created or preserved these labels for so many students instead of working to remove those labels.

Consider these two recent headlines and excerpts from other Globe articles. “Boston Students Struggle With English Only Rule” (4/7/09) states "Students not fluent in English have floundered in Boston schools since voters approved a law change six years ago requiring school districts to teach them all subjects in English rather than their native tongue, according to a report being released tomorrow." Our school works relentlessly to build student proficiency in English as quickly as possible so that we can remove them from this category; we were able to reclassify 7 of our 11 ELL students as Fully English Proficient. At other schools, many students who are identified ELL retain that status for years – perhaps because the schools are incapable of building English proficiency or perhaps because they value these labels for their financial benefit. Students who are labeled ELL receive 25% more state funding; this means that an ELL carries a $2,600 reward for each student labeled.

And an article entitled “Changes Urged In Special Ed” (7/9/09) asserted that "The Boston public schools are keeping too many students with disabilities out of regular classrooms and may be wrongfully identifying some students for special services because of shortcomings in teaching literacy or dealing with behavior problems, according to a report released last night at a School Committee meeting." We wholeheartedly agree. We recognize that because charter schools do not serve students with the most severe educational needs, the percentage of special education students at district schools should be slightly higher than in Boston Public Schools. But the vast difference between our school and district schools is attributable to the failure of many schools to intervene early, respond to children’s educational needs within the regular classroom, and remove them from their special education plans. We pride ourselves on the fact that the number of special education students at our school has decreased, not because we are losing our special education kids, but because we are allowing them to lose their special education labels.

When comparing students in Boston Public Schools and Boston area charter schools, we urge people to consider demographics that schools do not control: race and low income status. Looking at statistics that rely on subjective labeling by districts isn't a valid analysis. It is backwards to criticize urban charters for not "serving the neediest" because they resist placing children into these categories when they enroll many more African American and similar numbers of low-income students and have closed the achievement gap between them and their suburban counterparts.

- Guest bloggers Jon Clark and Kimberly Steadman, Edward W. Brooke Charter School