As the District of Columbia Council considered Mayor Vincent Gray’s $77 million supplemental spending package last week, rumors began flying. One was that D.C. public charter schools’ quarterly payment from the city might be stopped unless the council approved the mayor’s package. Hours before the mayor spoke at an annual gathering of D.C.’s public charter school community, his office announced $9.4 million for charters to cover “spending pressures.” This was his way of falsely implying that charters, which are run independently of D.C. Public Schools and educate 41 percent of the District’s public schoolchildren, had overspent the funds appropriated for them.