Center for Learner Equity report reveals broad consensus from local schools to explore shared services amid deep concerns from families and schools about current challenges and inequities
The Center for Learner Equity (CLE) is spearheading a pilot effort in collaboration with NOLA Public Schools and local charter leaders to more effectively deliver special education services through citywide coordination in New Orleans. The effort comes as CLE, a national nonprofit with expertise in special education in charter schools, releases a new report that documents local schools’ and families’ frustrations with the quality and availability of vital services for the nearly 8,000 students with disabilities attending the city’s public charter schools.
“Parents and charter school leaders alike told us the current, fragmented system is not working for children with disabilities, too many of whom are not achieving their full potential,” said Jennifer Coco, the Senior Director of Strategy and Impact at CLE. “Now is the time to pilot a new, shared approach to ensure that every New Orleans child with a disability gets the high-quality education they deserve.”
School leaders across a diversity of charter management organizations (CMOs) reported their struggles to secure the necessary staff to effectively meet the needs of students with disabilities, the new CLE report shows. Access to qualified special educators and specialized providers was especially difficult.
Families also spoke about service provider shortages and the negative impact on their children. Many interviewed families said they felt ignored when trying to navigate the decentralized school system and ensure their children’s needs were met.
On August 13, CLE will join NOLA Public Schools to provide testimony to the Orleans Parish School Board urging support for a plan to pilot shared services for students with disabilities at interested charter schools across the city. Under the proposed plan, participating schools would retain their current operational autonomy. A working group representing 20 interested charter schools was launched in May under the leadership of Trepwise Strategy Consulting to advise on the plan’s development. The Board is expected to vote on the matter later in the week.
CLE has carefully examined the feasibility of centralizing aspects of special education through the system’s creation of an Educational Service Agency, a regional public agency that provides services and programs to autonomous schools. Recognized in education law, these service agencies are commonly used in roughly 41 states and date back nearly a century as a mechanism to build capacity in schools.
CLE’s report documents that 74% of school leaders say they believe centralization could improve their ability to meet students’ needs. “Educators in this city are tenacious and deeply committed to closing achievement gaps for their students. And yet, these efforts and commitment to equity are not reaching students with disabilities,” said CLE’s Coco. “By working together to explore the balance between individual school autonomy and the system’s collective size and scope to meet the needs of all students, we can bring our city’s school system to the next level of innovation and creative problem-solving.”
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