Governor's increase for charter schools debated in Senate Appropriations
01/23/2015

 

ACTION: Contact Gov. Pence, your state senator, and your state representative and tell them you oppose a new taxpayer subsidy benefiting charter schools. Request that they look to provide a better school funding formula than the governor is proposing (ISTA supports a 3 percent increase in each of the next two years) so that Hoosier tax dollars are leveraged to serve all public school children.

Contact Gov. Pence, your state senator, and your state representative and tell them you oppose a new taxpayer subsidy benefiting charter schools. Request that they look to provide a better school funding formula than the governor is proposing (ISTA supports a 3 percent increase in each of the next two years) so that Hoosier tax dollars are leveraged to serve all public school children.

 

Chairman Luke Kenley (R-Noblesville) convened the Senate Appropriations Committee to discuss the governor’s proposal to provide an additional $1,500 per student in an across-the-board payout to charter schools.

 

The proposal amounts to $86.5 million more to charter schools over the biennium—over and above the  other new money that charter schools would be entitled to under the school funding formula laws.

 

The governor’s entire K-12 school formula request for all of public education calls for a total of $200 million in new money over the biennium (2 percent increase in year one and 1 percent increase in year two).

 

So, the governor is calling for almost one-half of the new money for K-12 education to go to this new charter school subsidy.

 

Charter school students comprise less than a 3 percent “market share” if the market is all of public education.

 

Nobody attending the hearing contended that charter schools are receiving fewer operating funds than traditional public schools. These operating funds come from the state and federal government and are provided to run school programs. Tuition support through the formula, special education dollars, vocational education dollars, and all other categorical program dollars—all flow to charter schools, too.

 

• Charter schools were created by the legislature on the premise that they could do this work more efficiently (this point was raised by Sen. Kenley).
• Charter school organizers are not public-sector entities nor are they governed by locally-elected boards.  Even if this extra money is targeted just for building acquisition, construction, renovation, and/or maintenance, at the end of the day or upon the closure of the charter school, the public does not “own” these facilities in perpetuity as they do with our public schools (this point was raised by Sen. Brent Waltz-R; Indianapolis).
• Charter schools uniquely qualify for federal start up grants beginning in the year prior to opening and initial operational grants for the initial two years (this point was raised by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz).
• The state forgave $91 million in loans to charter schools just 2 years ago (this point was raised by Sen. Kenley).
• The funding of public schools is always a bit of a zero-sum exercise.  This $86 million expenditure targeted to an enterprise that serves fewer than 3% of the entire public school population comes at the expense of other public school programs and services—it is a matter of priorities (this point was raised by ISTA).