From Deseret News archives:
Give charter schools parity
Four years after Utah's first charter schools opened their doors, there should be some in-depth evaluation of this form of public school choice. But first, the Utah Legislature needs to deal with funding inequities between students who attend traditional schools and students who attend public charter schools.
Although the Legislature has attempted to ensure financial parity, it has not yet succeeded. Seemingly, any meaningful measure of the relative worthiness of charter schools needs to be done after student funding is on an equal footing with traditional public schools. On average, school districts spend about $5,600 per student in traditional schools. Funding for charter school students comes to about $4,822 each.
Children who attend charter schools are provided neither transportation nor school lunch. Many Utah charter schools have struggled financially, although federal start-up grants have somewhat eased the pinch.
How these schools are supposed to demonstrate their worthiness is difficult to comprehend when they encounter considerable start-up costs and they don't receive the same funding as the neighborhood school down the street.
Five years after the Utah Legislature approved charter school legislation, charter schools are largely misunderstood. They are public schools, and yet some school administrators view them as competitors no different than private schools.
Because Utah school funding formulas are largely based on enrollment, it is understandable that small, rural school districts worry about losing students to charter schools that the districts didn't endorse. The Legislature ought to be able to conceive of a funding mechanism that protects traditional schools in that circumstance.
However, the funding of charter schools has always been a ticklish issue. In the beginning, charter schools were funded by the state and local school district, with the state picking up a greater share of the costs. Now, the state foots the entire local portion, which means all school districts subsidize charter schools. The issue is further complicated by an individual school district's bonded indebtedness. School districts require funding to repay debt incurred building traditional schools yet there is no targeted funding for charter school buildings or classrooms.
Another issue to consider is that charter schools educate less than 1 percent of Utah's public school population. Obviously, charter schools are not vehicles of widespread education reform, but they are, arguably, an important form of choice.
Lawmakers need to make policy decisions as to whether they are willing to give students in this form of public school choice an equal footing with traditional school students.
There are no simple solutions here. The Utah Foundation is correct in that considerable research needs to be conducted. Then, the Legislature must determine if it is willing to commit sufficient, ongoing resources to allow this form of choice to flourish rather than limp along as it has since its inception.
