Earlier this week, a recent UB grad named Maddie Morcelle presented the School Board with a study she'd done on special ed rates in Buffalo's charter schools.
It took her a few months before the Buffalo Public Schools would give her the school-by-school data she'd requested. (For reasons I don't understand, the state does not publish school-by-school special ed rates on the annual report cards. The data is public, but it's not readily available on a website anywhere.)
The data she got was interesting. Not only did she get the special ed rate for every charter school, but she also get the percentage of students at each school whose disability was speech- or language-related. Those disabilities are generally less severe than others in the universe of disabilities, and are among the less expensive to address.
Her study confirmed two things that are generally believed to be true: the special ed rate varies considerably from school to school (in the year she looked at, the range was 4.3 percent at Global Concepts Charter to 20.2 percent at Pinnacle Charter), and charter schools generally enroll fewer students with disabilities than district schools (in the year she looked at, the average was 13.3 percent at local charters, compared to 19.4 percent in the district).
That piqued my curiosity, and so I asked the district for comparable data for district schools.
What I ended up with was the most-recent data available for district schools (2011-12) and the most-recent data available for charter schools (2010-11).
The range in the special ed rates is quite dramatic, for district schools as well as charter schools.
Within the district, Hutch Tech has the lowest special ed rate, at 4.9 percent. City Honors is at 8.2 percent. At the other end is South Park, at 25.6 percent; Early Childhood Center 82 at 26 percent; and Drew Early Childhood Center at 30.1 percent.
(School 84, on the ECMC campus, and the Occupational Training Center both have a special ed rate above 90 percent. Those two schools are specifically designed for students with disabilities.)
The lowest special ed rates among the charters were at Health Sciences (5.5 percent) and Buffalo Academy of Science (8.1 percent). King Center, Pinnacle and Enterprise charter schools were all around 17.5 percent.
Here's the school-by-school breakdown. Schools with the lowest percentage of special ed students are listed first.
| School | % students with disabilities | % speech/ language | % students with disabilities, other than speech/language |
| Hutch Tech | 4.9% | 0.1% | 4.8% |
| Health Sciences Charter | 5.5% | 0.0% | 5.5% |
| Buffalo Acad of Science Charter | 8.1% | 0.6% | 7.5% |
| City Honors | 8.2% | 0.2% | 7.9% |
| International Sch 45 | 9.9% | 3.6% | 6.4% |
| Buffalo United Charter | 11.4% | 4.7% | 6.7% |
| da Vinci High School | 11.7% | 0.0% | 11.7% |
| Applied Technology Charter | 11.9% | 5.3% | 6.7% |
| Global Concepts Charter | 12.3% | 4.9% | 7.5% |
| Elmwood Village Charter | 12.4% | 5.7% | 6.7% |
| Olmsted 64 | 12.4% | 6.1% | 6.3% |
| Westminster Charter | 13.0% | 5.2% | 7.8% |
| Community Charter | 14.0% | 7.9% | 6.1% |
| Drew Science 59 | 14.1% | 4.5% | 9.6% |
| Native Am Magnet | 14.1% | 4.4% | 9.7% |
| Lydia T. Wright | 14.2% | 3.4% | 10.8% |
| Buffalo Elem Sch of Tech | 14.2% | 2.9% | 11.3% |
| Performing Arts | 14.3% | 0.6% | 13.7% |
| Olmsted 56 | 14.4% | 2.1% | 12.2% |
| Waterfront | 14.7% | 7.1% | 7.6% |
| South Buffalo Charter | 14.7% | 7.5% | 7.2% |
| Middle Early College | 14.9% | 0.0% | 14.9% |
| Pantoja | 15.1% | 3.0% | 12.1% |
| North Park | 15.2% | 3.0% | 12.2% |
| Math Science Tech Prep | 15.2% | 1.6% | 13.6% |
| Tapestry Charter | 15.4% | 2.8% | 12.6% |
| D'Youville Porter | 15.5% | 5.7% | 9.8% |
| Sedita | 15.5% | 3.8% | 11.7% |
| WNY Maritime Charter | 15.6% | 0.0% | 15.6% |
| Discovery School | 15.7% | 4.7% | 11.1% |
| International Prep | 15.7% | 1.9% | 13.8% |
| Oracle Charter | 15.8% | 0.0% | 15.8% |
| Aloma Johnson Fruit Belt Charter | 16.1% | 8.6% | 7.5% |
| Bilingual Ctr 33 | 16.2% | 5.9% | 10.3% |
| McKinley High | 16.3% | 0.0% | 16.3% |
| Lafayette High | 16.4% | 0.0% | 16.4% |
| Highgate Heights | 16.7% | 4.6% | 12.1% |
| King Center Charter | 17.4% | 9.5% | 7.8% |
| Pinnacle Charter | 17.6% | 9.4% | 8.2% |
| Enterprise Charter | 17.7% | 11.3% | 6.4% |
| School 81 | 18.0% | 5.2% | 12.8% |
| West Hertel | 19.1% | 5.4% | 13.7% |
| Community School 53 | 19.1% | 3.1% | 16.1% |
| East High | 19.1% | 0.0% | 19.1% |
| Bennett High | 19.5% | 0.3% | 19.2% |
| Bennett Park Montessori | 19.6% | 4.4% | 15.2% |
| Roosevelt | 19.8% | 11.1% | 8.7% |
| Makowski | 20.2% | 6.4% | 13.8% |
| Houghton | 20.3% | 5.9% | 14.4% |
| Riverside | 20.3% | 0.1% | 20.2% |
| Academy Sch | 20.8% | 0.0% | 20.8% |
| Early Childhood Ctr 17 | 20.9% | 7.8% | 13.1% |
| B.U.I.L.D. Academy | 21.0% | 6.8% | 14.2% |
| Hamlin Park | 21.2% | 2.5% | 18.7% |
| Herman Badillo | 21.3% | 6.7% | 14.7% |
| Blackman | 21.3% | 6.3% | 15.0% |
| Early Childhood Ctr 61 | 21.6% | 7.4% | 14.2% |
| Hillery Park | 22.4% | 7.8% | 14.6% |
| Lovejoy Discovery | 22.7% | 7.3% | 15.4% |
| Futures Academy | 22.8% | 6.6% | 16.2% |
| Emerson | 23.0% | 0.0% | 23.0% |
| MLK | 24.1% | 4.7% | 19.4% |
| Burgard High | 24.3% | 0.2% | 24.2% |
| Lorraine | 24.4% | 7.4% | 17.0% |
| Harvey Austin | 24.8% | 9.5% | 15.3% |
| Southside | 25.4% | 6.8% | 18.6% |
| Grabiarz | 25.4% | 3.9% | 21.5% |
| Tubman | 25.6% | 4.7% | 20.9% |
| South Park High | 25.6% | 0.3% | 25.3% |
| Early Childhood Ctr 82 | 26.0% | 5.0% | 20.9% |
| Drew Early Childhood | 30.1% | 7.5% | 22.6% |
| Erie County Health Ctr Sch 84 | 92.5% | 0.0% | 92.5% |
| Occupational Training Ctr | 96.3% | 0.0% | 96.3% |
- Mary Pasciak
facebook.com/mary.pasciak twitter.com/MaryPasciak mpasciak@buffnews.com
