It’s state budget time in Ohio, and as experts like to remind us, budgets reflect priorities. In the area of K–12 education, legislators should maintain a focus on empowering parents to take more control of their kids’ education and improving the educational outcomes of less advantaged students.
On both counts, public charter schools—also known as “community schools”—are answering the call. In terms of meeting parent needs, these independently-run, tuition-free schools have long offered choices that allow families to find a school that works for them. Some have benefitted from specially designed charters that tap into students’ artistic talents or nurture their academic gifts. For others, a charter school has meant a fresh start after rocky experiences in their local district.
Due to longstanding geographic restrictions, Ohio charters serve predominately disadvantaged students. And there is clear evidence that they’re getting results. A study by CREDO found that Black students fare better when they attend an Ohio charter school (as opposed to a district school). Likewise, a more recent report by Ohio State University professor Stéphane Lavertu estimated that the average Black student moves from the 25th to 40th percentile in statewide achievement by attending a brick-and-mortar charter in grades four through eight.
Despite these undeniable benefits, charters are still treated like second-class schools. Ohio’s urban charters receive on average about $4,000 per student less funding than urban traditional districts. The disparity is driven by charters’ lack of access to local tax revenues—which account for on average just over 40 percent of district funding—and the state’s decision not to fill the hole. These funding gaps are problematic in two ways. First, they violate the basic principle of equity. Students of similar backgrounds should be funded at comparable levels, but charters receive far less than their district counterparts to educate the same child. Second, these gaps disadvantage charters in retaining talented teachers, providing essential supports, and ensuring students learn in properly-equipped school buildings.
What can state legislators do to rectify these problems and more fully leverage the charter model to meet parent and student needs? Here are four ideas.
- Make the Quality Community School Support Fund permanent. In 2019, Governor DeWine proposed and shepherded through the legislature a new funding stream that supports high-performing charters. During FYs 2020–21, this $30 million per year program provided up to $1,750 per economically disadvantaged student to roughly a quarter of Ohio’s best charter schools. Given the budgetary constraints facing charters, these extra funds are vital to increasing their capacity to scale and serve more students. The governor’s FY 2022–23 budget rightly reauthorizes this program. Legislators should not only approve these funds, but go one step further by making it part of the permanent charter school formula (rather than funding it as a standalone appropriation).
- Treat charters fairly in the state funding formula. The current funding formula provides charters with full base amounts in the major components of the formula. For instance, recognizing that charters have no local tax authority, Ohio allots the entire $6,020 per student base amount for their Opportunity Grant—the component that delivers the bulk of state funding to both districts and charters. Even though charters receive full base funding, they still miss out on tens of millions in local revenues. Legislators could narrow funding gaps by setting charters’ base amounts somewhat above districts, or by including a multiplier that applies only to charters. What legislators shouldn’t do is treat charters as inferior, as is the case for House Bill 1—a House rewrite of the school funding formula. Under that proposal, charter schools would receive 10 percent less funding in three of the cost components that determine base amounts. Policies such as these would widen funding gaps, not narrow them.
- Provide adequate resources for school facilities. As several reports have documented, Ohio charters face an uphill battle securing suitable facilities. Their challenges are rooted in policies that shut charters out of the state’s main school construction program, deny them a share of local capital improvement levies, allow districts to withhold underutilized buildings, and provide them with inadequate facility specific funding. Legislators should pursue various policy avenues to better meet facility needs. First off, they should significantly increase the Community Schools Facilities allowance that currently provides a modest $250 per student—well below annual facility costs. Legislators should also invest in solutions that address capital needs on a broader scale, such as allowing charters to tap state construction dollars. Lastly, legislators should consider programs that lower the cost of debt through “credit enhancement,” as other states have done.
- Ensure local tax dollars follow students to their school. Courageous lawmakers could get to the root of the problem—charters’ lack of local funding—and require local tax revenues to follow students to public charter schools. This would adhere to the principle that funds—yes, all funds—should follow students to the schools they actually attend. It would also be fairer to charter school parents who pay local taxes, whether directly or through rent. To be sure, this would be a heavy political lift and likely require technical changes to the state’s charter funding model (to account for newfound local revenues). But a true “fair funding” plan for all public school students—and their parents—would guarantee that dollars from every level of government follow students to the school they attend.
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Ohio legislators should be laser focused on empowering parents and accelerating learning for needy students. By further leveraging the proven power of the charter school model, Ohio will take strides in creating a more student- and parent-centered system of public schools.
