By proposing a $24.1 million supplemental funding increase for D.C. Public Schools — but not for the city’s public charter schools — Mayor Vincent Gray not only broke his own campaign promise, but the law as well. Equal funding for charters is not just a good idea. It’s a statutory requirement under the D.C. School Reform Act of 1995. Yet the District has consistently underfunded its charter schools anywhere between $72 million and $127 million annually over the past five years, according to a study by Mary Levy that the city commissioned but refused to release.

Levy’s study only became public after two charter advocacy groups asked her to write the same report for them, which they then released to the mayor’s Public Education Finance Reform Commission. One of the study’s key findings makes it obvious why the District government tried to keep it under wraps: “[T]he use of projected rather than actual enrollment figures … results in $4 million to $45 million higher annual funding for DCPS.” In other words, DCPS consistently overestimates its own enrollment to gain an unfair advantage in the uniform per-student funding formula. This is one of the accounting tricks that put charters at a disadvantage.