With Charter School Giveaway, Gov. DeWine Invests in Least Efficient, Least Effective K-12 System
Added benefit for Charter Schools: They will get more state money per pupil than several school districts SPEND per pupil, including local property taxes and federal funding
I’ve been involved in the Public School-Charter School War for about 25 years. As a reporter, legislator, and analyst, I thought I’d seen it all.
But I’ve never seen this.
Gov. Mike DeWine’s budget proposes making the per pupil funding for Ohio Charter Schools to average $11,432 by the second year of his budget. If that sounds like a lot, you’d be correct.
That’s more state funding than kids in nearly 9 in 10 Ohio school districts receive.
“Wait!” you say, skeptically. “Can’t local school districts raise local property taxes and charters can’t? So shouldn’t charters get more?”
I’ve heard this for, literally, decades from pro-charter school advocates who never bring up how their teachers get paid less, they don’t have to pay for busing or do about 137 different bureaucratic things that school districts do1.
But fine. Let’s just say that for the purposes of this post, Charter Schools should get more state funding than local school districts.
You know that $11,432 per pupil that Gov. DeWine now says Charter Schools should get?
That’s more than the following public school districts spend in total, including all local property or income taxes and federal funding:
That’s right.
Eleven Ohio School Districts spend less local, state and federal money per pupil than Charter Schools will receive in state money alone under Gov. Mike DeWine’s budget.
And it’s not like we’re getting a whole lot of bang for our buck for that massive Charter School investment. As I mentioned earlier, nearly 99 percent of the increase he’s giving to Charter Schools is going to schools that score below the state average Performance Index Score, and he actually cuts funding to Ohio’s top 10 performing Charter Schools. That’s in addition to the utter failure of Ohio’s Charter Schools on a national level.
But in terms of spending our tax dollars? Ohio Charter Schools are really, really good at spending their money on the adults that run their schools, not the kids they’re supposed to educate.
They actually spend more per pupil funding than Ohio’s public school districts, even though they don’t get the local revenue that districts do.
So even though they spend about $1,000 per pupil more overall, they spend less on instruction, nearly 1/2 as much on pupil support (kinda shows you how much they value the pupil experience, doesn’t it?) and significantly less on staff support and operations support (busing, maintenance, etc.).
Look where they spend a LOT more, though. Non-instructional administrative costs. So the reason they spend so much more overall than school districts is because they spend double the amount on non-instructional administration than school districts do.
Now THAT’s efficiency!
I remember when Charter School advocates would constantly hammer public school districts spending money on the “adults” in the system rather than the kids: I can’t count how many times I heard the “we need to put more money in the classroom” bullshit.
Charter Schools — the allegedly “efficient, market-based” approach to education that’s supposed to drive more money into the classroom — instead drives twice as much money to the adults running Charter Schools.
If that $2,167 per pupil in public schools is “wasteful” spending on adults, WTF is $4,246? I’m waiting, Fordham.
How the hell are Charter Schools the answer to the educational efficiency question?
Simple.
They’re not.
They’re the problem.
One final indignity: The boost DeWine is giving to Ohio Charter Schools extends to the online Charter Schools that brought the single largest taxpayer ripoff in state history. While the average per pupil spend in Ohio’s online schools remains below what any school district spends (though way closer than it should ever be, considering online schools don’t have buildings, buses, low class sizes, etc.), the Buckeye On-Line School for Success (they call themselves2 BOSS for short get it?) actually spent more per pupil last school year than Bethel Local spent.
And remember that Bethel Local gets state, local and federal money. Oh yeah. And has buildings!
But BOSS gonna Boss, I suppose.
What did DeWine do for BOSS, which has a Performance Index Score that’s lower than 95 percent of Ohio School Districts (reminder than BOSS, as a statewide school took kids from 214 Ohio school districts in 2021) in his proposed budget?
He gave them a 5.6% funding increase by the 2026-2027 school year. That’s a larger increase than he is giving 75 percent of Ohio’s public school students.
Once again, I ask: Why does Mike DeWine hate public school students?
Civil service, latchkey programs, paying full-time employees while they serve on juries, identify gifted students, prohibiting superintendents from being a sales rep for a textbook company while serving as superintendent are among the things Charter Schools are exempt from.
www.go2boss.com, is their website.