California Charter Schools Dodge

 

I was prompted in an online discussion of an anti-teacher editorial in the Orange County Register by a claim that California Charter Schools were particularly good for Black students. 

The last solid California K-12 data were the year prior to the pandemic. That is shown below.

2019-2020 Enrollment (Counts in 100,000)

                     Hispanic          White                Black            

All                33.8, 54.9%    13.8, 22.4%     3.2,  5.3%      

Public          30.3, 55.2%    12.0, 21.8%      2.7,  5.0%     

Charter         3.5, 52.2%      1.83, 27.2%     0.5, 7.4%  

 

California's largest Black school population is in Los Angeles County, and note well that the LA charter schools are basically the ones that "pumped" the numbers for Black Charter schools. What was hidden is that their charter schools draw from public school already with high Black enrollment.

 

Now look at the "special" education problems in California. The 2 largest are English Language Learners, and Physical Disability.

              ESL(1000s)       Disability (1000s)

All         1,148, 18%        721,  12%

Public    1,046, 17%        655,  11%

Charter     102, 11%          66,    1.07%

 

Again, Charter Schools are dodging out of the hard work.

If we look at the total educationally challenged populations; English Learners, Foster Youth, Homeless Youth, Migrant Education, Students with Disabilities, Socioeconomically Disadvantaged we see that 89% of them all are taught in public schools, only 11% in Charters.