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Here at FOCUS, we believe that every DC student, regardless of which public school they attend, deserves the same treatment and the same opportunities. Sadly, DC government policies impede this vision by valuing DCPS students over public charter students through disproportionate funding.
FOCUS and the DC Association of Chartered Public Schools commissioned a report by Mary Levy last month entitled “Public Education Finance Reform in the District of Columbia: Uniformity, Equity, and Facilities.” In the report, Mary Levy, an accomplished DC school funding expert, explores the lack of funding parity between D.C. traditional public schools and public charters.
Levy’s major finding is that DCPS received between $72 and $127 million dollars of non-uniform funding annually in the last four to five years. These are funds that public charters don’t receive because they were allocated to the government-run schools outside of the uniform funding formula.
According to the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula (UPSFF) Act of 1998, annual operation funding for the district schools and public charter schools is allocated on a per-student basis in line with the law. As such, UPSFF allotments are meant to “follow the student” and were set for FY12 at $8,943 per student. These funds determine annual operating funding for both schools, and pay for critical items such as teacher salaries, classroom technology and books, school lunches, and resources for students with special needs.
So why is there a lack of parity?
Let’s start with the basics: DC has two different types of public schools: traditional public schools, overseen directly by the DC government, and independent D.C. public charter schools. While both types of schools are publicly funded, public charters are autonomous and structured as 501(c)(3) organizations. Hence, public charters maintain local control over their school budget, curriculum, and personnel.
Public charters don’t receive the in-kind facility management services from DC government agencies that traditional schools do. When overruns occur in the DC budget, it’s DCPS schools that receive supplemental funding. More importantly, public charters receive less funding per student in their facilities allowance than traditional public schools do. How the government allocates funds for student enrollment varies as well. Traditional schools draw their money from enrollment projections, meaning that DCPS can get additional funds for students that aren’t actually in their classrooms come count day. In contrast, charter schools draw their money from actual enrollment that is audited by the state education agency and adjusted in quarterly payments if there were any over-projections.
The Public Education Finance Reform Commission (PEFRC) will issue an equity report analyzing Uniform Per Student Funding Formula (UPSFF) allocations from FY10 and FY11. The commission was formed to make policy recommendations to the Mayor that will be considered in shaping the FY13 budget. They have held several public meetings since late September to assess the lack of parity.
As per our recommendations in the Levy report, local funding for functions pertinent to both traditional public schools and public charters should be provided through the UPSFF rather than DC government agency budgets. Likewise, to establish funding parity, we support a student count based on actual enrollment for traditional public and public charter schools. More of our recommendations are available here in the report, reviewed by PEFRC on their January 17th meeting and posted on PEFRC’s website.
Accordingly, we call on PEFRC to stress financial parity in their recommendations. Keep checking our blog for our take on the commission’s final recommendations.