Chapter 8: Effect of State LEA Policy on Special Education Enrollment in Charter Schools

Since the early 1990s, charter schools have been a prominent market-based alternative to the provision of public education. Since the first charter school went into operation in Minnesota in 1991, they have proliferated across the United States and are now present, to varying degrees, in 40 states and the District of Columbia (Rhim, Ahearn, & Lange, 2007). Advocates advance charter schools as natural laboratories, liberated from bureaucratic constraints on traditional public schools (Finnigan, 2007; Gintis, 1995; Hill, Lake, & Celio, 2002; Wells, Grutzik, Carnochan, Slayton, & Vasudeva, 1999). They theorize that charter schools will use their legal autonomy to improve public education by developing innovative educational practices that force traditional public schools to adopt academically effective innovations in order to compete for students (Chubb & Moe, 1990; Gintis, 1995).