Special Education Cooperatives Can Work for Charter Schools, Study Finds

A new study from the National Charter School Resource Center states that special education cooperatives can be an effective way for charter schools to band together to provide services to students with disabilities, but making the model work can be challenging.

The study, conducted by researchers at American Institutes for Research, involved reviews of eight special education cooperatives serving charter schools. The study, Charter School Special Education Cooperatives: A Model for Supporting the Delivery of Services to Students With Disabilities in Charter Schools, includes an analysis of major factors that influence success, descriptions of the cooperatives and their structures, as well as a table of key questions that should be considered by stakeholders who are contemplating implementing the model.

Leaders and members of cooperatives indicate that there are long-term benefits to collaboration. Technologies and services that might be out of reach for one school with few students with disabilities can be made available by pooling resources and spreading costs across multiple schools. “It really helps charter schools [to] have experts in the field at a reasonable price,” one cooperative founder told the AIR researchers.

At the same time, services and support are not necessarily distributed evenly among cooperative members, which makes striking a balance a challenge. For example, a school that has two special education students one year might have 15 the next year, one leader of a cooperative noted.

The February 2011 study found that the interrelated factors of deep commitment and trusting relationships among members, skilled and knowledgeable leadership, close geographic proximity among members, and adequate and sustainable funding are vital for a cooperative to succeed.