Growing Charter School Chain Suspends Special Needs Kids in Bid to Raise Test Scores [View all]

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/juan-gonz-lez-growing-charter-school-chain-suspends-special-needs-kids-bid-raise-test-scores-1378049

Democracy Now! co-host Juan González discusses his reports for the New York Daily News about how one of the New York City’s fastest-growing chains of charter schools, Success Academy, has far higher suspension rates than other public elementary schools. "More than two dozen parents have come to me complaining about their children — who are special needs, special education children, or children with behavior problems," González reports, "that they feel are being pushed out or forced out by the charter school in an effort to to improve the test scores." Success Academy uses its high test scores to attract funding, and just secured a $5 million grant it will use to expand from 20 to 100 schools. González obtained a copy of secretly recorded meetings in which school administrators pressed one parent to transfer her special education kindergarten student back into the public school system.