It is the start of the Mayor’s budget season and therefore another opportunity for politicians to play with the charter school facility allotment. To understand the framework for this year’s discussion I went directly to the person who knows more about this subject than probably anyone in the country, the recently retired Chairman of the D.C. Public Charter School Board Tom Nida.

As background, remember that in 2009 Mr. Fenty wanted to find a way to tie the facility allotment to the actual needs of schools. A suggestion was made at that time to pay charters what they were currently spending for space plus additional dollars in order to secure future buildings. The Mayor took this idea and tried to reduce it to only the first part of this equation, with the justification that charters were using excess facility funds to augment their per pupil instructional dollars. After loud and contentious feedback from the charter school community the facility allotment was lowered $300 from $3,109 per student to $2,800. There was also a promise by Council Chairman Vincent Gray to bring together a task force to study the matter.