Disproportionality in Charter Schools: Evidence From California, Texas, Florida, and Tennessee

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Examining Methodological and Conceptual Complexities in the Study of Racial Disproportionality in Special Education

Abstract

Objective
The history of people marked as raced is distinct from those marked as dis/abled, but those experiences overlap and show that bodies marked simultaneously as raced and dis/abled are disproportionately positioned within American education for separation, seclusion, and segregation. This presentation examines disproportionality in charters schools from a DisCrit perspectives using evidence from CA, FL, TN, and TX.

Theoretical Framework
DisCrit maintains that dis/ability is not mere biological fact. The deployment of dis/ability labels operate at the intersections of marginalizations, compounding historical inequities towards vulnerable students (Annamma, Connor, & Ferri, 2013). DisCrit, thus, establishes firm links to the fundamental tenets of critical race theory and dis/ability studies in education (DSE), examining inequalities in the assignment of students to certain dis/ability categories, as scholarship points to the apparent long-term national data trends in the Office of Special Education Programs Annual Reports to Congress on the Implementation of IDEA dating back to the 1990s.

Methods/Data sources
This presentation is a secondary analysis of publicly available data from the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) for charter schools across five states: CA, FL, TN, TX, and WA, representing 2,511 schools (see Table 1) and 1,092,227 students (see Table 2)—a majority of whom are students of color (see Table 3). Data have been disaggregated by sex, race, LEP, IDEA, Section 504, and provide information on student enrollment, discipline, expulsion, referrals to law enforcement, staffing and finance, and other significant data items.

Findings
In 2016, 196 charter school students in CA, FL, TN, and TX were transferred for disciplinary reasons. The majority were students without disabilities (Figure 1). However, in CA, 1 in 4 of arrest referrals were of students with disabilities (SWD), with Black SWD being the most disproportionately referred (see Figure 1). In 2016, a total of 170 charter school students in CA, FL, TN, and TX received a school-related arrest across all states, with over half of the students being Latinx. Overall, 1 in 5 of these students were SWD. In CA and FL, 1 in 4 of these school-arrests were of SWD (see Figure 2). In 2016, 111,121 charter school students in CA, FL, TN, and TX were chronically absent (10.7% of all charter students), defined as missing 15 or more days of school in a year. Within subgroups, SWD were more likely to be chronically absent compared to all students (15.8%). In Florida, 21% of SWD were chronically absent compared to 13% of the state’s SWOD. Intersecting with race, language, gender, and SES mattered, as disparities deepened across intersections. Of the states examined, some states were worse offenders than others, but charter schools across all states struggled to provide a high-quality education experience to students of color with disabilities, particularly Black SWD.

Scholarly Significance
Disparities within charter schools across these four states deepen at the intersection of race and ability. Our findings, thus, help inform understandings of disproportionality in charter schools (though only in selected states) along key dimensions of difference based on school-level factors.

Authors

• David E. Kirkland, New York University

• Maria G. Hernandez, New York University