The Milwaukee school board voted recently to even out the distribution of special education students in the city’s high schools, according to an article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
The article said the board directed the administration to start ensuring that all schools are equipped to serve a wide range of student needs. Members also directed the administration to set a target range of special education students, and to help schools with very high or low special education populations come closer to that target range, the article said.
But the article said the decision will probably cause rumblings among high-achieving large high schools in the system that have had low populations of special education students.
The Journal-Sentinel reports that the average proportion of special education students in district high schools with more than 500 students is about 20 percent. But the population of special education students can range from school to school, with one high school having 30.8 percent, and another having a special education population of 10.1 percent, the article said.
