In the news this past week come reports that some low-performing students, as well as students with special needs, are being pushed out of charter schools and enrolling in their neighborhood zoned schools, echoing what we reported in May (See: "Most vulnerable students shut out of charter schools).

In her opinion piece, Insideschools founder Clara Hemphill questions whether charter schools help or hurt neighborhood public schools. She highlights two low-income schools in the Bronx that, although located just one block away from each other, serve very different student populations.

According to Hemphill, the majority of students who go to the Carl C. Icahn Charter School are African-American and speak English at home, while the majority of students at PS 42 are Latino and only speak Spanish. PS 42 has many students who receive special education services, and teachers there say some are students "who can't meet the academic or behavioral requirements of the charter school are encouraged to leave and wind up at PS 42."<!--more-->

Additionally, PS 42 serves many students from local homeless shelters who move in and out of the school throughout the year. At the charter school, however, families sign up for the entrance lottery by April, and as Hemphill notes, "know in the spring where they will be living in the fall. " In our May article, we reported that the Carl C. Icahn Charter School enrolled only one homeless student. Jeffery Litt, superintendent of the Carl C. Icahn charter schools, told us that he did not know whether homeless families had the time to research the ins and outs of the charter school application process.

An article in Sunday's Daily News finds that the practice of dumping low-performing kids on local public schools may be widespread. It quotes Brooklyn's PS 173 Principal Melessa Avery as saying that low-performing students were pushed out of charter schools and enrolled in her school late in the year. According to the Daily News, 550 charter school students transferred into traditional public schools between Oct. 31 2008 and June 1, 2009.

Is this happening in your neighborhood? Please tell us about your experiences below.