On average, the funding gap between charter schools and traditional schools is 22 percent, or $1,800 per pupil. The average charter school ends up with a total funding shortfall of nearly half a million dollars.
Source: Charter School Funding: Inequity’s Next Frontier
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Note: Please be aware that online publishers often change URLs or no longer provide access to articles after 7 days. If any of the below links no longer work, access the publishing newspaper and search the archives for the keywords in the subject matter. Good luck.
L.A. District Blocks Charter Conversion Plan
Claiming that most tenured teachers no longer back a charter conversion of Locke High School, the L.A. Unified district has rejected plans by Green Dot Public Schools to convert the campus into several charters. In May, Green Dot Public Schools announced that it had collected "signatures of interest" from a majority of the tenured teachers at the school. District officials said that many faculty members recently rescinded their signatures because of confusion over the takeover plan. Green Dot officials have accused district leaders of deliberately trying to undermine their efforts and said they will push ahead with plans to convert Locke by 2008. Some teachers said they withdrew their signatures after district officials indicated they had put their district employment at risk.
Source: LA Times (free registration required), (06/02/2007)
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Baltimore Mayoral Candidate Seeks Expansion of Charter Schools
Baltimore city councilman and mayoral candidate Keiffer Mitchell Jr. is running on an education platform, which includes proposals designed to make it easier to expand chartering in the city. Mitchell, a former teacher, has proposed a public-private charter school incubator and seeks to establish an independent board to make it easier for charter schools to be approved. Currently, Baltimore's charter schools are granted charters only from the school board. "This is a plan that's not about the status quo. It's a plan that's different," said Mitchell. "It's a plan I believe will work as we move our city forward." His other education proposals include requiring a more transparent budget process, demanding efficiency audits in every school, forming a school safety task force, and giving principals more power in suspending violent and disruptive students.
Source: Baltimore Sun, (06/01/2007)
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New Hampshire Legislature Moves to Give Seed Money to Existing Charters
The New Hampshire Senate Finance Committee has recommended repurposing $800,000 in charter school start-up money to help existing charter schools stay open over the next two years. Officials from several charter schools told lawmakers this year they may have to close if lawmakers do not increase state support. Committee members said it is better to support successful programs until there is further study about how best to fund the state's charter schools for the long term.
Source: Sea Coast Online, (05/31/2007)
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New Generation of Education Reformers Targets Democrats on Charters
A new organization, Democrats for Education Reform, wants to get Democrats to support charter schools and raises money for Democratic politicians who support school choice issues. It has collected money for Senators Obama, Clinton, and Lieberman, NY Gov. Spitzer, and several other leaders. It counts the NY charter cap lift, signed by Gov. Spitzer in April, as their first major victory. This week they will host a party designed to raise several million dollars and to shape the 2008 presidential race. Three of DFER's four founders sit on the boards of charter schools. A big urban school system, founder Whitney Tilson said, is kind of like the General Motors of the education world. "Very large bureaucratic organizations (have) become increasingly disconnected from their customers…are producing an inferior product and losing customers (and) are heavily unionized." A successful charter school, on the other hand, is like "Toyota 20 years ago."
Source: New York Sun, (05/31/2007)
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Leading Education Journal Profiles Indianapolis Mayor's Chartering Program
Calling him the "Peyton Manning of Charter Schools," the journal Education Next (published at Stanford University), details the charter schooling efforts and successes of Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson (D). Peterson is currently the only mayor in the country authorizing charter schools. In the 2006–07 academic year, the mayor oversaw 16 charter schools serving 3,870 students. His strategies have been applauded by those on the left and the right of the political spectrum. Andy Rotherham, former adviser to President Clinton and co-founder of Education Sector in Washington, D.C., says Peterson's example proves that school choice is perfectly compatible with the philosophy of the left. Peterson's philosophy is a "liberalism of people," devoted above all to the interests of students and families, not a "liberalism of institutions," devoted to preserving the bureaucracy and the unions.
Source: Education Next, (05/27/2007)
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Charter School Leaders in New Jersey Lobby for More Funding Support
Charter school supporters in New Jersey are calling for increases in state aid, arguing that charters have produced positive results for students, but lack fair financial support. The state's charters receive roughly 48 to 65 percent of the funding per pupil that other public schools receive, said Jessani Gordon of the NJ Charter Public Schools Association. New Jersey's charter law requires 90 percent funding, but local districts keep many of the monies that should be passed on to charters, Gordon said. "The people of New Jersey's charter schools deserve equity," said Mary Jo McKinley, president of the association and director of Academy Charter High School. Richard Vespucci of the State Department of Education said charter school funding is getting a comprehensive review as part of the new funding formula development process. Charter supporters are actively lobbying legislators. "We have to make sure our voice gets heard," Gordon said.
Source: Home News Tribune, (05/15/2007)
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