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For years, the plaintiffs in the case have argued that charter schools are not serving their share of special education students and that the Illinois State Board of Education has found compliance problems. Lawyers for ISBE and CPS (the defendants in the case) have recently argued that the situation has improved enough that monitoring is no longer needed. But a response filed in February by a lawyer for the plaintiffs notes that a detailed look at the disability population in charters shows some broad differences. Among the points made by the lawyer is that the overall percentage of students with disabilities in charter elementary schools is 25 percent lower than in regular elementary schools.

A StateImpact Florida/Miami Herald investigation shows most charter schools in Florida are failing to serve students with severe disabilities.

Special education has become the new wedge for advocates of school choice-private school vouchers, charter schools, and other options for public school students. Some school-choice proponents told me that students with disabilities inspire sympathy, and state lawmakers wouldn't stand in the way of their getting these additional opportunities. The big risk for parents who choose vouchers is that they'll lose their federal rights to be involved in their child's education as provided by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

"With big bucks from Wall Street supporters behind her, charter network operator Eva Moskowitz won a fight she started with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio over charter schools. De Blasio got politically hurt in the battle after being steamrolled by Moskowitz and Gov. Andrew Cuomo - but in the end, it isn't de Blasio who will pay the most. At P.S.  149, it's students with severe disabilities."

"As high school seniors all across the country graduated this week, history was quietly being made in Washington, D.C. at the Department of Education for 23 D.C. public school students with developmental and intellectual disabilities. They, like their peers across the country, were graduating too. They all participated in a program called Project SEARCH. The 15-year-old program now operates in 39 states and four foreign countries, but this is the first year that the federal government has hosted the project in three agencies including the Departments of Education, Labor and Health and Human Services."

"RTI raises many concerns. Some parents worry that RTI winds up denying children with learning disabilities services. One fear is that some parents don't think they can request an evaluation, or they are led to believe it isn't necessary."

"More than 250,000 pre-K, elementary, junior high and high school aged children - many of them disabled and of color - are restrained or put into isolation each year for behaving in ways that are considered disruptive or threatening."

In this report we provide some context to these policy responses to special education enrollment in charter schools by describing the distribution of students with disabilities in New York State charter and district-run schools. We show that different levels of comparison-state level, school type, district level, and authorizer level-yield different results, and comparisons at high levels of aggregation (such as those made at the state level) mask important information and variation. Whether, and in what ways, charter schools appear to systemically underserve students with disabilities depends on how you answer the question, "Compared to what?" 

A new letter from the Office for Civil Rights at the federal education department details how school districts should act on some changes to federal law regarding people with disabilities. The way I'm reading it, the letter expands the range of students to whom school districts' may have to provide special education services and accommodations, including some who in the past may have been found not to need those services.

The undersigned education, civil rights, religious, children's, disability, and civic organizations are committed to the No Child Left Behind Act's objectives of strong academic achievement for all children and closing the achievement gap. We believe that the federal government has a critical role to play in attaining these goals. We endorse the use of an accountability system that helps ensure all children, including children of color, from low-income families, with disabilities, and of limited English proficiency, are prepared to be successful, participating members of our democracy. While we all have different positions on various aspects of the law, based on concerns raised during the implementation of NCLB, we believe the following significant, constructive corrections are among those necessary to make the Act fair and effective.

The superintendent of the state's largest school district requested a state investigation Monday into his allegations that charter schools are turning away homeless and disabled students in violation of state and federal laws.

This paper examines the extent to which students with disabilities are being served by the approximately 5000 publicly funded charter schools, which are predominantly, but not exclusively, located in urban, under-performing school districts, and 20 percent of which are operated by charter-school management organizations (CMOs) controlling multiple entities.  

It's crunch time on school vouchers for disabled kids in Wisconsin. Last summer, I wrote about how Republicans and school choice groups are targeting kids in special ed. A particularly noxious piece of "school reform" legislation, drafted by ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council) and pushed by Republicans in statehouses around the country, would get unsophisticated parents to swap their kids' federally protected right to a free, appropriate public education for school vouchers of highly dubious value to the kids.

Charter schools across the country, and in most individual states, enroll a smaller percentage of students with disabilities than traditional public schools, though the factors behind those disparities remain unclear, a new report from a federal investigative agency concludes.

"When schools choose, students with disabilities lose"

More than 30 years after passage of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, schools are still working on including students with disabilities in all facets of public school. And in many places, they remain segregated for at least part of the day, says Wayne Sailor.

Seven years after the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was renewed with a provision allowing response to intervention to be used when deciding if a child has a specific learning disability, a new study shows 71 percent of school districts use the strategy in at least one school.

Students with disabilities or health problems are more likely to be the target of bullies than their classmates, according to a study published this month in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Late Thursday, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and 13 other senators introduced a bill that proposes the federal government fulfill a decades-old promise to pay 40 percent of the cost of educating students with disabilities, the Council for Exceptional Children's Lindsay Jones tells me.

A biennial publication of the National Center for Learning Disabilities.