Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Funding Disparities Between Traditional Public and Charter Schools
Of course, I had seen the news stories covering the study which says that there is a significant funding difference in the states between money for traditional public schools compared to charters, with the later receiving the short end of the stick. And I was purposely staying away from the subject. But now that my friend Dion Haynes has written about it I guess I'll comments.
I have to admit I'm not crazy about this subject. First of all the paper was written by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation together with the Gates Foundation and both are strongly supportive of charter schools, so my assumption is that it is biased.
But second, I guess I have a problem with the over-all premise. Public school critics have cried out for years that inner city public schools spend way too much per child. So if it costs the District $13,000 per kid to educate them then do we really want charters to get this much? This is what FOCUS has been arguing for years. But if we need that much then why can parochical schools educate kids for much less? How do voucher schools that across the country receive less than a third of this provide quality education?
The mistake I see some charter schools make is that because the facility allotment does not buy them what they need they supplement this money with per pupil funding for education. A big mistake since paying for a building could crowd-out a school's education program. But they do this in order to survive. If we fix the facility issue we will go a long way to achieving a true comparison between what it cost charters versus traditional public schools to educate a child.
PermaLink | 6:15 AM |
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I have to admit I'm not crazy about this subject. First of all the paper was written by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation together with the Gates Foundation and both are strongly supportive of charter schools, so my assumption is that it is biased.
But second, I guess I have a problem with the over-all premise. Public school critics have cried out for years that inner city public schools spend way too much per child. So if it costs the District $13,000 per kid to educate them then do we really want charters to get this much? This is what FOCUS has been arguing for years. But if we need that much then why can parochical schools educate kids for much less? How do voucher schools that across the country receive less than a third of this provide quality education?
The mistake I see some charter schools make is that because the facility allotment does not buy them what they need they supplement this money with per pupil funding for education. A big mistake since paying for a building could crowd-out a school's education program. But they do this in order to survive. If we fix the facility issue we will go a long way to achieving a true comparison between what it cost charters versus traditional public schools to educate a child.
PermaLink | 6:15 AM |
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