Mayor Vincent Gray’s budget office is preparing the administration’s proposed fiscal year 2014 budget, which the mayor will send to the District of Columbia Council in late March. The budget will fund both the traditional public school system and public charter schools, which are run independently of the school system and educate 43 percent of District students enrolled in public schools.

Past years’ budgets have shortchanged the charter schools, providing more dollars for each DC Public Schools student than for each charter school student. Will the mayor’s 2014 proposal break with this tradition, which violates the law and principles of fairness? There are some hopeful signs.