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Saturday, November 30, 2019

Charter Schools

In The Politics of Autism, I write about special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  Vouchers and charter schools are part of the ongoing debate.

The National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools has a report titled Key Trends
in Special Education in Charter Schools in 2015–2016: Secondary Analysis of the Civil Rights
Data Collection

Compared to traditional public schools, charter schools report a higher percentage of  enrollment of students with specific learning disability (the largest population of students with disabilities) (47.79% v. 43.98%), autism (8.08% v. 7.71%), and emotional disturbance (4.72% v. 3.89%)

...
Our analysis of specialized charter schools’ websites revealed that schools typically advertise that they serve students with multiple different disabilities or one specific
disability. Of the schools we identified, most (63.3%) focus on two or more disabilities. Of the schools that advertise that they specialize in serving students with a specific
disability, emotional disturbance (14.5% of the schools) and autism (14.5% of the schools) were the most common
...
 The most-represented disability focuses are not necessarily the same among specialized charter schools in Florida, Ohio, and Texas. In Florida, the majority of specialized
charter schools have a general focus (n = 28), followed by a focus on autism (n = 7) and developmental delay (n = 3).