Charter schools called a burden to school districts

Utah charter schools receive less per-student funds than regular public schools, but they also financially burden school districts, states a Utah Foundation report released this week.

So are they worth it?

"Charter schools serve many valuable purposes, and . . . policymakers may ask whether those purposes justify the additional funding they require," states the report.

Views differ.

Advocates believe charter schools provide options to better serve diverse student needs. Parent demand is high, said Eric Smith, a leader at Timpanogos Academy charter school, which has a 700-student waiting list.

But Rep. Brad King, D-Price, said charter schools also create contention instead of improvement through competition.

"If we have problems that need to be overcome, we need to solve them for all students in the system, not just a few," he said.

Charter schools are public schools that must abide by state requirements, from testing to core curriculum use, but have some freedom for teaching innovations.

Utah's 19 charter schools are mostly specialized in areas including the arts and at-risk students. They enroll just under 3,300 students. That's more than the enrollments of 18 of Utah's 40 school districts.

Many charter school leaders say they struggle on shoestring budgets that, for instance, don't give them funds to build or rent their own schools.

The state Legislature has tried to ensure financial parity, but has not yet succeeded, the report indicates.

For instance, barring one-time federal start-up grants, charter schools' funding comes down to $4,822 per student. Ordinary school districts spend an average $5,600 per student.

On one hand, charter schools don't have to provide transportation and school lunch like regular school districts. But they also don't get much of the money other schools get, particularly if it's not tied to enrollment.

And even enrollment-based funding is hard to calculate, because some schools are approved and opened open after the Legislature meets. This year, lawmakers estimated 800 new charter school students for their charter schools appropriation. But at least 1,769 new students actually enrolled, and charter schools were shorted $802,500.

Many funding issues are rooted in the local property tax. At first, charter school students received the state per-student funding, plus half the districts' per-student funding coming from the property tax. The state made up the other half.

Now, the state subsidizes the entire local portion. Yet it still can't determine whether that funding should be calculated to include all local money, including debt service for buildings.

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