Charter schools are the foster children of the public school “family.” Who will own them? As innovative, public schools, they certainly can’t claim kinship with the state’s private schools. And unlike their traditional public school siblings, they have no bureaucratic sugar daddy to safeguard their financial well-being.
As a result, these scrappy schools must fight for their fair share of the resources. Even from the outset, these schools have more hurdles to clear than traditional public schools. By law, charter schools are obligated to fund the cost of their facilities, meaning county governments cannot issue bonds or direct funds to assist charter schools in constructing schools. Yet, school systems dole out significant resources for the construction of traditional public schools: in 2002-03, county governments spent an average of $753 per student on capital expenses. Charter school budgets suffer in other areas as well. According to the Fordham Foundation’s report, Charter School Funding: Inequity’s Next Frontier, North Carolina charter schools received 5.5 percent less funding than did district schools in 2002-03, a gap of $414 per pupil. Wake County charters were even harder hit; they received 29.5 percent less than their public school counterparts, a gap of $2,727 per pupil.
This same insidious partiality has seeped into calculations over the distribution of proceeds from our new state lottery. This decision to give charters the cold shoulder differentiates our state from all others: according to the Associated Press, if the current law remains unchanged, North Carolina will be the only state in the nation that treats charter schools differently when it comes to the distribution of lottery revenue.
Fortunately, charter school advocates have grown tired of these ongoing inequities, and are fighting back. A new organization, NC-SELF – North Carolina Students for Equitable Lottery Funding has coalesced to represent the almost 30,000 North Carolina charter school students who deserve a fair allocation of resources.
Last Wednesday, NC-SELF hosted press conferences across the state to explain the inequity in the lottery law and to mobilize public opinion. Over the next several months, NC-SELF will sponsor seminars for elected representatives, embark on a speaker’s bureau tour, arrange meetings with state legislators, and launch a comprehensive public relations campaign. Fortunately, NC-SELF’s grassroots action strategy is already garnering media attention, sparking debate and scrutiny of the current law. Even the editorial board of the Charlotte Observer understands the fairness of recognizing charter schools in the lottery law.
Please consider learning more about NC-SELF and getting involved. Citizen activism, leveraged strategically, has the power to effect lasting change, even to the point of changing laws.
In the end, charter schools will always lack the bureaucratic birthright of traditional public schools. But they are no less deserving of our attention and education resources. Isn’t it time we stopped playing favorites?
To learn more about charter school funding as well as the latest education news, visit the Alliance online at www.nceducationalliance.org. Check out the “Headlines” section of our home page, updated daily with articles from every major newspaper in the state. At the Alliance, we are committed to keeping you informed and empowered as we join together to improve education for the children of North Carolina.