logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Defining “Fair” Funding: Another Public/Charter School Battleground

Martin Levine
June 15, 2015
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

 

June 11, 2015; Arizona Daily Star

Public education is funded by a complex mixture of federal, state, and local funding. Some funds are developed and available to be allocated on a per-pupil basis, while other funds are designated for specific purposes, such as capital improvements, special education, transportation, and so forth. To further complicate this picture, in some states, charter schools are not limited to serving students from just one local school district, making the meaning of local funding less clear.

States have developed funding formulae designed to cut through these complexities and provide fair and adequate funding to the charters schools they support. In absolute dollars, the result has been a lower level of per-pupil funding for charter school students and a growing controversy about whether this result is right and fair. Charter school advocates have turned to both the courts and their state legislatures seeking changes that would increase their funding.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled last week in a suit brought by charter school advocates and parents of charter students that it would not overturn an earlier appellate court ruling that found that unequal funding levels were legal and could continue. According to the Arizona Daily Star, in the earlier ruling Appellate Judge Margaret Downie said that “charter schools do not have some of the same administrative regulations as district schools. They need not hire certified teachers, and are not required to follow the same procedures for hiring and firing staff.” Moreover, “they can specialize in certain subject areas or even just certain grades, can give preference in enrollment to siblings of existing students, and can even limit enrollment to a single gender, all options not available to traditional schools.” Therefore, they were not entitled to equal funding.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

In a response, the president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools Nina Rees released the following statement on the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the ruling:

“By refusing to hear this case, the Arizona Supreme Court has told the parents of children in Arizona public charter schools that their children can be treated as second class citizens. Sadly, inequitable funding is the norm across the country, with the average charter school receiving 28.4 percent less funding than their traditional charter school counterparts. It’s no wonder we have seen a growing number of lawsuits from parents demanding equal funding for their children’s public charter schools.”

The suit was one of a number of challenges in recent months by charter school advocates who assert that they are not being fairly funded. For example, in Baltimore, charter school proponents recently rejected a proposal by their school board that would fund charter schools at a rate of $9,387 per-pupil next year. (The proponents calculate it should be set at a level of $10,010.) And a complaint filed in federal court by the D.C. Association of Public Chartered Public Schools, Eagle Academy, and Washington Latin public charter schools contends the city shorted charter school funding by more than $770 million, or $1,600 to $2,600 per pupil.

The complexity of the issue was described by Luis Huerta, a Columbia University professor, who said the “simple aggregated accounting of charter school funding compared to traditional schools is shortsighted, if it does not fully account for school level indicators” like student population and types of services provided. “The debate should not focus solely on how much funding is provided but also include a full accounting on whether charter schools are delivering the same level and types of services to all students, compared to traditional schools.”

With school choice remaining a key component of many advocates for “reform” of our nation’s public school systems and with growing the number of charter schools being the main tactic for actualizing choice, this funding debate will continue to be on the agenda of state and local leadership. And it will be compounded by pressures on state and local budgets that make any real increase in school funding difficult if not impossible.—Marty Levine

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Martin Levine

Martin Levine is a Principal at Levine Partners LLP, a consulting group focusing on organizational change and improvement, realigning service systems to allow them to be more responsive and effective. Before that, he served as the CEO of JCC Chicago, where he was responsible for the development of new facilities in response to the changing demography of the Metropolitan Jewish Community. In addition to his JCC responsibilities, Mr. Levine served as a consultant on organizational change and improvement to school districts and community organizations. Mr. Levine has published several articles on change and has presented at numerous conferences on this subject. A native of New York City, Mr. Levine is a graduate of City College of New York (BS in Biology) and Columbia University (MSW). He has trained with the Future Search and the Deming Institute.

More about: charter schoolsEducationNonprofit NewsPolicy

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Finding Power in Community: Lessons from the Chicago Teachers’ Union
Sheri Davis
How Environmental Education Is Moving into High Schools
Ayana Albertini-Fleurant, Dr. Janelle M. Burke, Kari Fulton, Joe Hurst and Ariel Murphy Bedford
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of Housing Insecurity for Black Women
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn
Why Access to Education Is Key to Dismantling Mass Incarceration
Syrita Steib

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Finding Power in Community: Lessons from the Chicago...
Sheri Davis
How Environmental Education Is Moving into High Schools
Ayana Albertini-Fleurant, Dr. Janelle M. Burke, Kari Fulton, Joe Hurst and Ariel Murphy Bedford
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.