In response to the Washington Post's unfair article about a pseudo-scandal at the D.C. Public Charter School Board--for which the Post editorial board has since tried to make amends --yesterday's paper ran an op-ed by charter supporters Kevin Chavous and Robert Cane . They make a number of good points. Perhaps most perceptively, they note that the city has not always played fairly with charter schools, creating a need for the facility loans that the Post decried:
D.C. law requires that charters be given first crack at empty school buildings, before condo developers or non-educational city agencies can bid for them. Yet the city has in most instances denied charters unused school facilities, forcing them into the commercial loan market to pay high costs for spaces that are often inadequate.
The issue of these bank loans was raised recently in The Post , leading some to confuse the freedom that charters enjoy with a lack of accountability and oversight. Charters do have overseers: They are accountable to parents who choose them for their children and to their regulatory body, the Public Charter School Board, a nationally renowned model of accountability. For 12 years, this board has been doing what the city has just begun for traditional schools: holding charters to high standards, tackling under-performance and replacing ineffective school leaders.
They also debunk the myth, spread by the Post , that charters are "flush with funds":
In fact, both types of public school are funded under the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula, which ensures that students in the same grade or at the same level of special education are funded equally. About $3,000 per student goes to charters to pay for facilities, while DCPS schools receive about $5,000 per student from the city government's capital budget. The big foundations make grants to both types of schools.
Fordham found similar results in its (somewhat dated) study of charter and district funding (pdf). Though the charter formula intends funding to be equitable in D.C., in 2002-03 charters received about $2,100 less in facilities funding per-pupil than did the district schools, leading to a total funding gap of $3,552. Charters thus received, on average, about 22 percent less than district schools.
