The generally better performance on tests by charter school students is often criticized as being a result of the charter schools cherry picking the students. Another related criticism is that special education students are not represented in the charter school population to any significant degree or not at all. This looks like it will be changing.
The LAUSD has added a policy item for charter schools that will require financial disclosures or operators of charter schools and it will require compliance with providing services to disabled students.
The L.A. Times report also shows that the move was opposed by the association of charter schools
The story is in the report by Howard Blume in the L.A. Times, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/education/index.html -
"Charter leaders must disclose financial details and follow policy on disabled students," by Howard Blume, January 12, 2010 5:00 pm
Currently, the LAUSD is responsible for compliance with a court ruling know as the Modified Chanda Smith Decree that requires the services to be provided with results to be accomplished. It looks like the charter schools opening up now in the LAUSD areas of service will have to follow that requirement, and that, if it's the case, will definitely slow the advance of charter school openings.
I have long thought that there was that built in advantage that the charter schools have in not having to provide services for special education that LAUSD is required to do and that it was not a good thing at all.
The special education services provided by the district were at sub par level long ago and to some extent, continue now. The particular decree was was a response to what was determined to be shortcomings of the district's practices. There is a very full PowerPoint sumary of the operation of the decree at http://dse-web.lausd.k12.ca.us/sepg2s/mcd/mcd.pps if you have that program operating.
So the situation will be a little more interesting with that feature requiring compliance, and with the financial disclosure of operators that may reveal something, I am not sure what other than to see how holdings manipulated for some that makes "non-profit" something a little more worthwhile to some. Non-profit rarely means "volunteering" for anything, only that there is no money left over to be a profit once the bills are paid.
The District has a worksheet to evaluate charter school operation in this area when it comes to renewal of the charter- I didn't see any indication of how old these forms are, but you can see the kinds of things that are rated to the extent that those items apply:
http://notebook.lausd.net/pls/ptl/docs/PAGE/CA_LAUSD/FLDR_ORGANIZATIONS/FLDR_INSTRUCTIONAL_SVCS/CHARTER_SCHOOLS/CHARTER_SCHOOL_POLICY_DEV_DOCS/MICROSOFT%20WORD%20-%20RENEWAL%20CRITERIA%20%20FINDINGS--DRAFT.PDF
So now, we wait and see what way this policy will be effected by the LAUSD in going through applications for charter school operations in the district.
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