Giving Compass Take:

· The University of Arkansas's Study, Charter school funding: (More) Inequity in the City, tracked all public school revenue in 14 cities with high concentrations of public charter schools. The study concludes that the charter schools in those cities received on average 27 percent less total revenue per pupil than traditional public schools.

· Why is there such a large gap in funding? Should all revenue be tracked and included in the calculations?

· Read more about charter schools. 

In December, we released our study Charter School Funding: (More) Inequity in the City. We meticulously tracked all public school revenue — including federal, state, local, and nonpublic dollars — during the 2015-16 school year in 14 cities with high concentrations of public charter schools. Charter schools in those cities received on average 27 percent less total revenue per pupil than traditional public schools, a gap of $5,828 per student.

The cities with the largest gaps were Camden, N.J., at $14,671 per student, and Washington, D.C., at $10,258 per student. Charter school students in Atlanta, Georgia, received an average of 49 percent less per pupil in revenue than students in traditional public schools. In Little Rock, Arkansas, charter students received 39 percent less.

One critical feature of our public school funding studies is that we focus on revenue. We think it’s important to know how much money is being provided to the public charter and traditional public school sectors. It represents the resources committed to educating students. (School expenditures, while interesting, are a different topic.)

Read the full article about charter schools by Patrick J Wolf, Corey Deangelis, Larry D. Maloney, and Jauy F. May at The 74.