Want a Label for Your Child? Go To BPS!

Today's Globe article argues that charter schools serve less students with special needs and less English language learners than their sending districts. By the numbers, this is irrefutable. However, it's important to ask the next question: why?

The general argument from the teachers unions and school districts is that charter schools intentionally recruit so as to avoid students that are "hard to educate." If that were the case, wouldn't the logical solution be to recruit the parents of the "easiest to teach" (according to popular conventions)? Shouldn't they be recruiting middle and upper middle class white kids in West Roxbury and JP like this mom's kids? However, if you look at the numbers, most charter schools in Boston (with a couple of exceptions) serve predominantly low income, minority students who come in to their schools way below grade level.

Perhaps the problem is on the other side. Perhaps BPS is over-labeling ELL and special education students. According to this piece:

"Some 20 percent of Boston’s 56,000 students received special education services last year, about 3 percentage points higher than the state average and notably higher than other cities nationwide."

Maybe Boston Public is labeling students as special education because they are frustrated because they are not able to get them to learn. On the other hand, as today's article mentions, the charter schools with which I am familar work really hard to get them OFF of unnecessary special education plans. They also label fewer students.

The same may be true for English Language Learners. Districts have a financial incentive to label students as Limited English Proficient. Why? Because then they get an extra $3,000 per LEP student in state funding. In Boston, 50% of all students whose first language isn't English are labeled as LEP. In most charter schools, that number significantly lower. Why aren't they labeling a similarly high percentage of their kids? Even in Lawrence, where 80% of students don't speak English as their first language, only 20% are labeled LEP. It seems as if BPS has caught onto the fact that if they label more of their non-English speakers as having the most severe needs, they will get more money.

I'm sure charter schools need to do more to recruit special education and ELL students; the Patrick proposal that would get the district mailing lists into their hands will help with targeting these efforts. However, someone needs to take a closer look at the district to see if they are over-labeling their students to make them seem needier than they actually are...