Charter School Funding: Inequity in the City

Public charter schools increasingly are part of both the national conversation about education policy and the local urban scene in America. Previous studies of public charter schools have examined their achievement effects focused on both the state and metropolitan levels, and funding disparities focused on the state levels. This is the first study of funding inequities to concentrate on revenue disparities between charters and traditional public schools where charters are most common: metropolitan areas across the country. The 15 urban areas that inform the study include Atlanta, Boston, Camden, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Memphis, New Orleans, New York City, Oakland, San Antonio, Tulsa, and Washington. Because these locations include eight plus the special case of New Orleans for which there is some prior data and six that are new to charter revenue research, the authors can place their findings in a broader context of time and space. Data regarding the charter school funding gap were carefully collected from official state documents and audited school reports regarding the 2014 fiscal year. The authors define a public charter school as any school that: (1) operates based on a formal charter in place of direct school district management; and (2) reports its finances independently from the school district. The authors define all other public schools as traditional public schools (TPS). The following are appended: (1) Methodology; (2) Information Sources; (3) Summary Tables for Each Location; and (4) Indeterminate Revenue Streams.