Report: Most NYC Charter Schools Replace Students who Leave

New York City charter schools have widely different policies when it comes to replacing students who leave, according to a new report by the Independent Budget Office, but most in the report's sample group filled their empty seats.

The I.B.O. looked at attrition patterns at 53 privately managed charter schools between 2008 and 2014. Most of them backfilled between 70 and 100 percent of their empty seats. But Raymond Domanico, the education research director, found six of them only filled a third or less of their available seats, which can be relevant when looking at their test scores.

"If one is looking say, at sixth grade or eighth grade test scores, one would have to consider whether or not a school has been bringing in new students as seats become available or whether they are restricting themselves only to students who they've had for three or four or five years," he said.

The report didn't list which schools took new students as seats become available. The group Democracy Builders, run by charter school advocates, published similar findings in which it noted that the Success Academies network, run by Eva Moskowitz, was among those that didn't replace students in the upper grades.

"It's not really fair for the student in seventh grade or a high school student to have to be educated with a child who's reading at a second or third grade level," Moskowitz said on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show earlier this year. 

Domanico said his report showed the diversity of the charter sector, noting that Success charters were not representative of the whole. 

He also pointed to demographic data showing charter schools served a slightly higher proportion of students eligible for free or reduced price lunch in 2013-2014, and the same percentage of overage students. But they served a smaller percentage of English language learners and students with special needs than traditional public schools, especially students classified as learning disabled, emotionally disturbed or autistic.

The report documented how the charter school sector was growing at a tremendous pace. Since 2006, charter school enrollment rose by 364 percent with the schools enrolling more than 72,000 students in the 2013-14 academic year (or about 7 percent of city students, compared to 8 percent now). Meanwhile, enrollment in traditional Department of Education schools declined by 2.7 percent over those same years.

As charter school growth continues to outstrip the decline in DOE enrollment, about $13,000 in per pupil aid follows the students and flows to the charters.

"As this continues as we suspect it will, it will continue to put stress on the budget that's remaining for D.O.E. schools," said Domanico.