Education Week

VOL. 35, NO. 28 * APRIL 20, 2016

edweek.org:

BRE AKING NEWS DAILY

Swikar Patel/Education Week-File

Charters Help
Alums Stick
With College
Many of the nation's charter schools
set up shop in low-income urban areas
hoping to propel students who may
struggle to finish high school-let alone
go to college-into higher education.
But even among the students who
make it to college, national statistics
paint a grim picture of what happens
after they get there: Just 11 percent of
low-income, first-generation college-goers
graduate in six years, according to the
Pell Institute, a research group that focuses on access to higher education.
Even though many charters name
homerooms after universities and hang
college pennants in the hallways, their
alumni still face a range of challenges
once they reach college, from cultural to
academic.
In recent years, however, charter
schools-in particular, charter school
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Ryan Donnell for Education Week

By Arianna Prothero

J'Remi Barnes, a first-generation college student from New Orleans, walks across campus at Grinnell College in Iowa. He graduated from a charter
school that helps prepare students for college. Education Week profiled Barnes, also seen at top left in New Orleans, last year.

National Count of Special Education Students Shows Uptick
By Christina A. Samuels
After years of steady decline, the nationwide
count of school-age students covered under the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has
shown an upswing since the 2011-12 school year
based on the most recently available federal
data, driven by rapid growth in such disability
categories as autism.
In 2014-15-the most current year-a third
of the nationwide increase came from one state,
New York. The reasons for the sharp increase
in the state are not clear.
These numbers-gathered from reports that

every state is required to file yearly with the
U.S. Department of Education and analyzed
by Education Week and its Research Center-
cannot be used to demonstrate that there is
an actual increase or decrease of young people
with disabilities in the country. Child-count
data are sensitive to policies that encourage,
or discourage, special education identification.
And, as noted, a change in just one large state
can have nationwide impact.
But the numbers have real implications
for states and localities, which pay by far the
largest share of costs for special education
students.

Virginia is among the states that have seen
a large increase in the population of students
with autism.
At one time, autism was considered a "low
incidence" disability in Virginia, said John
Eisenberg, the state's director of special education. Now, those students make up the fourthlargest disability category in the state.
"What we're seeing is that about half of that
population are kids with pretty severe disabilities, major behavior issues, medical issues;
they're probably some of the most complicated
issues that school divisions face," said Eisenberg,

Cruz's K-12 Agenda:
Pro-School Choice,
Anti-Common Core
By Andrew Ujifusa

of non-academic factors on student
success, and as states are poised to
broaden their accountability systems under a new federal education law.
"If you're not a Cleveland or
if you're not a Los Angeles or a
Chicago, before it was cost-prohibitive in many cases to engage
in this kind of survey, analysis,
and reporting," said Sandy Wil-

When Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is on the
campaign trail talking about education,
the Republican presidential candidate
is perhaps best known for two promises:
He'll have the U.S. Department of Education end the Common Core
State Standards-and
he'll abolish the federal
N
TIO
Education Department
ELEC
itself.
The first of those
would seem to be a nonstarter-the common core is a statedriven initiative, not a federal mandate,
and the Education Department has no
authority to roll it back. The second
harks back to President Ronald Reagan, whose 1980 campaign platform
included ending the then-new department, a push that has never gained
traction.
That leaves Cruz's other major K-12
theme: support for charter schools and
vouchers, which the first-term U.S. senator has put at the top of his legislative

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2016

New Online Tool Expands Access to School Climate Measurements
By Evie Blad
Monitoring facets of school climate-like how safe, supported,
and welcome students feel in
their schools-has, until recently,
been off limits to some districts
that lack the resources or knowhow to accurately measure those
perceptions.
Tracking those factors is necessary to ensure that efforts to im-

prove the learning environment
are effective and that schools
don't overlook the needs of students from some populations, like
those from racial minority groups,
researchers say.
That's why the U.S. Department
of Education released a free, online survey tool this month that
will allow schools, districts, and
states to administer regular, anonymous school climate surveys.

The survey, developed by a panel
of school climate experts, uses
questions from existing surveys
that were tested with panels of
students to ensure their validity.
The site creates an instant analysis of a school's results, and administrators can save the data in
existing local data systems so they
can track results over time.
Its release comes as schools are
increasingly exploring the effects

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Education Week - April 20, 2016

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Education Week - April 20, 2016

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