Some Public Charter Schools Feeling Impact of National Economic Crisis

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/10/AR2008101002770.html

The Washington Post reports that the rapid growth of the District of Columbia's public charter school movement, which now accounts for more than a third of the city's public school enrollment, is experiencing a slow down because of the national financial crisis. Efforts to expand public charter schools may face longer roads to completion and schools might have trouble securing lines of credit to meet regular business expenses. Allison Fansler, KIPP DC's president and chief operating officer, said that financing for the renovation of leased properties is difficult in the best of circumstances because of the lack of collateral for a bank to fall back on if a loan goes bad. But Fansler said the public charter community's traditional banking partners, such as Bank of America, have been tentative. "We're reaching out to build as many relationships as we can," said Fansler, who remains optimistic that a deal can be struck. "There are a lot of ways we can mitigate this, but it's just more complicated and expensive." In Los Angeles, Mike Piscal, founder of the Inner City Education Foundation, said "So far, deals that would be done with 20 percent down now require 30 percent. Deals that would take two to three months are now taking five to six months." Public charter school officials in D.C. said they were particularly concerned that some of the new schools that opened this fall with small numbers of students and no track record might have difficulty securing credit for working capital.

Source: Washington Post (free registration required)
Date: 10/16/2008