Giving Compass' Take:

• A new report by Gordan Lafer finds that California school districts are losing millions of dollars per year because of students enrolling in charter schools, leaving their district schools without adequate compensation for overhead expenses. 

• How can charter laws be altered to create choices without compromising students in district schools? At what point are charter schools doing more harm than good overall?

• Find out why some charter school advocates are calling for donors to fund a charter school evaluation nonprofit.

Breaking Point: The Cost of Charter Schools for Public School Districts measures the fiscal impact of charter schools in three California school districts and represents the culmination of nearly a year of painstaking research during which I worked closely with staff in each district. What we found isn’t surprising, but it’s certainly daunting:

Charter schools cost students in Oakland Unified School District more than $57 million per year; in San Diego Unified School District, $66 million; and in San Jose’s East Side Union High School District, $19 million.

The cost of charter schools is not the only source of fiscal hardship for districts, but it is a significant one. Most importantly, it’s one that until now has gone unmeasured and unaccounted for in policy discussions.

Here’s how it works: When a student leaves a neighborhood school for a charter school, the host district loses a pro-rated share of total education funding. While some costs are saved by educating fewer students, these savings do not equal the lost revenue. Individual schools that lose small numbers of students still need to keep the electricity on, pay their principal and front office staff, maintain special education services, clean the building, and pay for other important needs.

Even when thousands of students attend charter schools — as is the case in some large urban districts — districts cannot close schools in mathematical lockstep with revenue losses, because they must maintain a network that allows most children to access nearby schools, avoid crossing through unsafe areas, and other complex considerations.

Read the full article about the cost of charter schools by Gordan Lafer at The 74.