kormer t1_j9hbn76 wrote on February 21, 2023 at 11:45 PM

Reply to comment by AnotherUser297 in Pennsylvania Cyber Charter Owners and Operators Get Rich While Students Receive Poor Education by Open_Veins_8

Stop the lies

>> Charters are often selective in who they admit

>A charter school shall not discriminate in its admission policies or practices based on intellectual ability or athletic ability, measures of achievement or aptitude, status as a person with a disability, English language proficiency, or any other basis that would be illegal if used by a school district. Further, a charter school may not use achievement tests, entrance examination tests, enrollment forms, admissions interviews, or other means of testing a student’s intellectual ability, disability status, English language proficiency or other basis that would be illegal if used by a school district to grant or deny admission. A charter school also may not require a student to obtain or maintain a particular grade point average to be admitted to the charter school. The chartering school district may conduct periodic audits of the school's applicants, accepted students, and enrolled students.

https://www.education.pa.gov/Policy-Funding/BECS/Purdons/Pages/CharterSchools.aspx

AnotherUser297 t1_j9hdsxo wrote on February 22, 2023 at 12:01 AM

Unfortunately the law and the reality are different.

Charters kick kids with IEP needs out or don’t admit them under the guise of not having resources for them. They kick kids out for behavior, or don’t admit them for truancy issues at a previous school. They hold their admissions lotteries at one specific location in one specific neighborhood for one hour one night per year.

ewyorksockexchange t1_j9hw3np wrote on February 22, 2023 at 2:13 AM

You are mostly correct here, but your comment about kicking out IEP kids is somewhat inaccurate. Charters actually thrive on admitting low-need IEP kids because they receive the funding boost that comes with them.

Generally low-level IEP students are less costly to host for charters than the average IEP kid across all classifications, and charters get the funding for the IEP average kid in a given district when they bring them in. So a charter is taking low need kids and getting more in funding from the public school than what it actually costs to educate them, meaning the public schools are getting crushed on higher level IEP students when the lower level ones go to the charters.

AnotherUser297 t1_j9hy38o wrote on February 22, 2023 at 2:28 AM

Right, a kid with an ADHD diagnosis and an IEP gets full sped funding but it’s not costing the school much more than a kid without an IEP. He or she might go to a learning support teacher part of the day, or might have a paraprofessional working alongside. A nonverbal kid with autism, or severe emotional disturbance, or extensive physical needs is going to cost a lot more to educate, but may also be turned down by the charter because they don’t have the staff or programs or facilities to educate the student. A lot of the time, the school honestly doesn’t have the resources to properly educate those students, but they absolutely do take full advantage of the higher funding for students with documented needs.