Giving Compass' Take:

• According to new research from the University of Florida, charter schools and other schools of choice have not been responsive to requests and admission for students deemed more "challenging to educate."

• For proponents of school choice, what might be some of the flaws in this data set? Do charters have difficulty developing programs for special needs children?

• Another perspective on this is whether charter schools can afford to support special ed students based on size. 

Research has found that charter schools ignore inquiries from special needs students at higher rates.

Isaac McFarlin Jr., an assistant professor of education and economics at the University of Florida, and Peter Bergman, an assistant professor of economics and education at Teachers College at Columbia University, designed and implemented a nationwide “mystery shopper” experiment to determine whether charter schools withhold information from certain groups of students at similar rates as traditional public schools.

The study uncovered significant differences between charter schools and traditional public schools in the rates at which they respond to specific types of inquiries from parents. The evidence suggests schools of choice are less likely to encourage applications from students who have poor behavior and low prior achievement, but charter schools withhold application information from special needs students at higher rates.

Read the full article about challenging students by the University of Florida at Futurity.