Are ELL Students Underrepresented in Charter Schools?
Demographic Trends in New York City, 2006-2008. 2010. Author: Jack Buckley & Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj Analysts of charter school reform have recently begun to investigate the enrollment patterns of special student populations, namely, low-income students, students classified as special education, and those with English language learner status. Using three recent years of data from the New York State School Report Cards and analyzing the charter population at the school level, we nd that English language learners are consistently under-represented in charter school populations across three academic years. Conversely, students who qualify for reduced price lunch are overrepresented and students eligible for free lunch are approximately proportionally represented. This gap in enrollments of English language learners is con rmed by comparing to a population estimate drawn from data from the 2006-2008 American Community Survey. These patterns remain generally constant for all school years obser
