Fair Facilities Funding: The Next Phase in the Fight for Charter Equity
One of the things we’ve long heard from our schools is that the facilities landscape remains one of the hardest challenges for charter operators to tackle. It’s not only extremely difficult for new schools to find a suitable place to open, but the challenge immediately shifts to one of cost and affordability. The typical charter school in Colorado has to dip into PPR by nearly $1,000 per student to pay for its facility. This is not only a strain on limited resources, it’s that many fewer dollars that can go where they belong – towards students, classrooms, and teachers.
All this got us wondering: What exactly is the full scale of the inequity confronting charters when it comes to facilities? When you account for all sources of taxpayer money devoted to public school buildings, how much of that goes to charters relative to the nearly 16% of public school students that Colorado charters now serve?
To answer this question, we partnered with an independent research firm (Momentum Strategy & Research) over the past several months to dig into the data and see what it revealed. As someone who’s been around this space for a while, I expected to see a gap, but nothing quite like the huge disparity the research ultimately revealed.
In the last 10 years alone, charter schools received $1.4 billion less than what a proportionate share of public funding on facilities would have been. By far the biggest driver of this inequity is the lack of equitable charter inclusion in district bond initiatives. Of the $15.5 billion in public funding that districts have received from bonds over the past 10 years, charters have received only about $550 million (~3.5%).
That not only comes nowhere close to the 16% of students charters have served over that time, but it is also an affront to the parents and families of charter school students. Charter school students are every bit a part of Colorado’s public school community as their district peers. Their families pay the same property taxes that fund local bonds, yet their schools rarely share equally in those investments.
Charter students deserve an equitable shot at the same bond-funded facilities and opportunities as every other public school student, which is why we intend to elevate this issue as part of our agenda for the coming legislative session. But in order to do this, we need your help.
We need your help in:
- elevating your facilities stories,
- telling your legislators why this issue matters,
- mobilizing your communities to make sure they’re aware of the inequity, and
- raising their voices to speak out against it.
Imagine the impact we could have if all 136,000+ families across Colorado currently benefiting from charter schools spoke up on this issue and told elected officials it needs to change.
Be on the lookout for further communications and resources from us in the coming weeks, asking for your support and engagement on this critical topic, and join us next Friday (11/21) at 10 am for our next Town Hall, when this topic and the research behind it will take center stage.
We’re a force to be reckoned with when we unite as one. Let’s make our voices heard.
Forward together,
Dan Schaller, President
Colorado League of Charter Schools
