School Choice Should NOT Come With A Penalty

by Robert Brown

Public charter school children in North Carolina are being shortchanged by their local districts. Under the state’s original 1996 charter funding law, local money followed each child no matter which public school the child attended. Now, because of changes to the original law, only a fraction of the money follows children if they attend a public charter school. These changes have allowed local school districts to restrict funds they do not have to share with public charter school children. (1)

Analysis of data from the NC Treasurer’s Office and the NC Department of Public Instruction for the 2013-2014 school year revealed that the nearly 70,000 public charter school children, on average, receive only 73% of local current expense funding received by district students on a statewide basis. As a result, over $33 million was denied to public charter school children this school year. (2)

In what world does it make sense for public charter school students to receive less per pupil funding than their traditional school counterparts? To claim that this level of funding is fair is to subscribe to an erroneous and irreconcilable logic. By this estimation, all students that attend public charter schools in North Carolina are second class citizens and not deserving of a fully funded education. Unfortunately this brings to mind the ruling in the 1896 US Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. In this case, the high court ruled that separate facilities were legal as long as they were equal. The ruling contained two fatal flaws - the first is that the separate facilities were based on race (an idea that we find reprehensible and unfathomable today) and the second that the court did not establish what equal meant. This left it to various partisan groups and local organizations to decide what equal really meant and to regulate its implementation as only they saw fit.

In North Carolina the local school districts and associated organizations have been allowed to determine what amount of funding is transferred to the public charter schools and thus to serve public charter school students. Much like the overt manipulation of racial inequality in the aftermath of Plessy v. Ferguson, this has led to distinct and targeted educational inequalities for public charter school students. As shown in the 2013-2014 audit of the NC Department of Public instruction (see attached information) the funding does not follow the child. A mind boggling 27% of the funds collected through various means of taxation, and specifically earmarked as funding education in North Carolina on a per pupil basis, do not find their way into the public charter school students’ schools. This is separate, but it is not in any way equal. The system of funding education as currently practiced is in effect a sleight of hand whereby traditional schools receive far more funding than has been allotted, along with vast amounts of public funds being diverted from their stated purpose - all without so much as a question.

There has been a recent “study” conducted by Helen Ladd which stated that public charter school funding led to a decrease in funding for traditional schools. Unfortunately Ms. Ladd is in error in her findings. (3) Again as the NC Department of Public Instruction audit has shown, the traditional school systems get an extra 27% of the per pupil funding for students that do not attend their schools. We need to be very clear on that point, traditional schools receive funding for students that they do not serve. While public charter schools operate on less than 3/4 of the per pupil funding - public money allocated specifically on the behalf of each and every student - traditional school systems receive funding above and beyond the amount allocated per student. This is a far cry from the decrease the traditional schools claim. While they cry foul over the existence of public charter schools, the traditional school systems are reaping a financial windfall as a result of current legislative actions and policy implementation.

(1) From Fair Funding for All NC Public Schools #FairFundNC

(2) The number of students in NC charter schools has grown to over 100,000 since this analysis was performed. It would be fair to assume that the amount denied to public charter school students has grown by a similar amount.

(3) http://bakeramitchell.com/2018/01/22/fake-facts-fuel-charter-funding-feud/