Public charter schools are funded much less than traditional public schools, according to a new report, and this gap has widened over time in eight major cities.
Public charter schools received $5,828 less per pupil on average than traditional public schools in fiscal year 2015-16, a funding gap of 27 percent, University of Arkansas researchers Corey DeAngelis, Patrick Wolf, Larry Maloney, and Jay May find.
The disparities stem from a lack of local funding. Most revenues raised from local property taxes go directly to traditional public schools. Charter schools receive almost no per-pupil funding from local funding streams — $3,000 versus $10,000 per pupil.
“In none of our cities is there an equitable sharing of local funds with charters and traditional public schools,” Wolf said in a media briefing.
Since local funding is the majority of a school’s funding stream, private aid and federal aid cannot even begin to make up the difference. According to the researchers, private donations and federal funding streams can actually worsen funding gaps.
Researchers studied 15 urban areas for fiscal 2015-2016 and examined funding inequities over time for eight cities.
In those eight cities, the overall funding gap favoring district public schools has grown 58 percent since 2003 and has shrunk 10 percent since 2014.
“The inequities tend to be large … we’ve seen and documented them. These gaps cannot be explained by the relative disadvantage of the population served by [traditional public schools] and charter schools. This is pervasive and is not going away,” Wolf said.
Charter schools in inner cities have a statistically significant effect on student achievement, as measured by test scores, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
These alternatives to the one-size-fits all model of traditional public schools increase high school graduation rates and college enrollment, according to the most recent review of rigorous evidence. Other studies using experimental evaluations find that winning a lottery to attend a charter school reduces the likelihood of incarceration for males and the teen pregnancy rate for females.
The long-term solution, according to Wolf, is for states to develop a system in which the money follows the student to any public school they wish to attend. Funding students rather than schools is the best way to ensure equity.
Kate Hardiman is a contributor to Red Alert Politics. She is pursuing a master’s in education from Notre Dame University and teaches English and religion at a high school in Chicago.
