A new charters-LAUSD battle

A battle between Los Angeles Unified and charter groups could be decided today when the State Board of Education is expected to rule whether charters statewide can take complete control of educating their special needs students.Connie Llanos in the Daily News.

Publicly funded and independently run charters have argued that they should control special education funding, as they do for their general education student population. They accuse large school districts like LAUSD of controlling federal special education dollars and obstructing charters from getting their fair share.

But L.A. Unified officials say charters traditionally cherry pick special education students with less severe disabilities and leave LAUSD with severely disabled students who are more expensive to teach.