Charter schools likely to get more for renovation, construction

April 1, 2008 - 7:29PM
The annual battle over charter school funding began anew Tuesday with the release of a report by the Colorado League of Charter Schools saying that students in those institutions receive less funding than kids in traditional public schools.

Their annually-recycled dishonest lobbying campaign to get even more money than they already get. It would be nice if a newspaper would add up the amount of money charter schools get compared to public schools, rather than just reporting this nonsense every year.

Charter school opponents countered that those schools can take advantage of more grant funding than other schools but often don't. Still, they conceded that charters are likely to get twice their usual funding for facility renovations and construction this year.

The report said charter schools spend $480 out of the $6,369 they receive in per-pupil funding on operating expenses for facilities because, unlike traditional public schools, they must buy or fix up buildings not owned by the school districts where they operate. With operational costs subtracted, their per-pupil funding falls below the state minimum, the report said.

What about the charter schools that get free facilities from school districts? They never mention that, as a powerful special interest, they forced through a state law requiring school districts to give them any space the district has available.

They, and the newspapers, also leave out the fact that public schools don't get state money for buildings either. They have to go to the voters and, if the voters say no, the public schools have to live without the money.

(There is one exception. We settled a lawsuit filed by Colorado's poorest districts a decade or so ago, and the settlement requires us to pay a minimal amount of money to them so they can eliminate conditions that are dangerous to their students. Charter schools can apply for that money just like any public school. The private payoff to charter schools, on the other hand, is only for charter schools; no public school can ask for it).

When districts ask voters for building an maintenance money, the charter schools get it too. That's another requirement the charter lobbyists got the legislature to ram down the throats of school districts. Of course charter schools could ask the voters for money too, but they've never been willing to live by democratic rules. It's easier for them to lobby the legislature until it overrules local voters and takes away their ability to determine where their tax money goes.

As far as them having to "spend $480 out of the $6,369 they receive in per-pupil funding" on their buildings, that's misleading too. Every district along the Front Range has to spend $500 from each public school student's per pupil revenue on special education. Charter schools have weaseled their way out of that. A lot of charter schools also, by state law, get a share of the district's at-risk money even though they refuse to accept at-risk students.

Then, of course, there's the original lie that got charter schools responsibility-free, taxpayer money in the first place. They promised their schools would be better and less expensive than public schools and, specifically, that they would never need capital construction and maintenance money.

That promise lasted just long enough to dupe the legislature. They've never been better, or even as good, as public schools. But immediately after getting themselves written into state law, the demanded -- and got -- the same funding public schools get. Even that wasn't, and isn't, enough. Today they get more. And it's still not enough, which is why this article is in the paper. It's part of their relentless demands for more and more money.

The need to find affordable facilities also means charter schools can be illequipped to serve all students' needs. A full 39 percent of them don't have access to a gym, and only 28 percent of charters have kitchen facilities that meet federal standards, the report said.

Less than 1 percent of Colorado Department of Education facilities grants have gone to charter schools since 2000, though those schools serve roughly 7 percent of Colorado's public school students. Some school districts have included charters in bond issues on ballots, while others have not, league president Jim Griffin said.

What the charter school lobbyists, and the newspaper, is leaving out here -- knowingly -- is that those grants don't go to 99% of our public schools either. The state makes those grants because we were forced to by a lawsuit, and the grants only go to the poorest schools that are the most dangerous to students.

Most public schools in the state aren't greedy enough to even apply for the grants. They realize that the money only goes to schools that desperately need it. It's a good indication of how avaricious the charter lobby is that they would even try to take money away from those students.

The solution is to dedicate more funding to charter schools' capital needs, Griffin argued. He expects a provision in the 2008 School Finance Act to provide $10 million for that, rather than the usual $5 million, he said.

"We have to do what it takes to bring our charter schools up to the standards we expect in Colorado," said Yuma Republican Rep. Cory Gardner, noting one charter school in Granby serves lunch in a tent.

Update: During the debate over the school finance bill I offered an amendment that would have actually helped get a lunchroom for the charter school in Granby. I say "helped" because we can't tell charter schools how to spend their money. The Republicans the pro-charter Democrats supported the amendment and it was put into the bill. The charter school lobby was furious. They don't like to see a great unfairness poster issue like that go away. They also don't like distributing funds on a need basis.

Charter lobbyists got the Senate to strip the amendment out. They kept the money in the budget, exclusively for charter schools, but distributed across the board so it won't help any individual, low-income school fix anything.

When the bill came back to the House the charter lobby has gotten its legislators back in line. They said the Granby lunch-in-a-ten situation wasn't an issue anymore. And it won't me, until next year's school finance act when it will be ressurected as a glaring example of unfairness toward charter schools.

On a broader note, what do you think would be the response if a school district told people it could afford to open a new school, then opened it without a lunchroom and complained about students having to eat in a tent?

But House Education Committee Chairman Mike Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs, said the report twists the funding numbers.

All schools factor facility costs as a percentage of their per-pupil funding, and because some charter schools don't have a gym or cafeteria, they have less of a facility to maintain with that money, he said.

The School Finance Act does not contain any special allocation for the schools that house 93 percent of Colorado's public school students, nor do those schools have access to federal or private grant programs specified for charters, he said.