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Stephen Dyer · February 14, 2013

Report: Unfair Funding – How Charter Schools Win & Traditional Schools Lose

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Research Overview
Innovation Ohio has analyzed data from the Ohio Department of Education that demonstrates that the way charter schools are funded in this state has a profoundly negative impact on the resources that remain for the 1.6 million kids in Ohio’s traditional public schools. In the vast majority of cases — even in many urban school districts — the state is transferring money to charter schools that perform substantially worse than the public schools from which the students supposedly “escaped.” Key Findings:
  • Because of the $774 million deducted from traditional public schools in FY 2012 to fund charters, children in traditional public schools received, on average, $235 (or 6.5%) less state aid than the state itself said they needed.
  • More than 90% of the money sent to rated charter schools in the 2011-2012 school year went to charters that on average score significantly lower on the Performance Index Score than the public schools students had left.
  • Over 40% of state funding for charters in 2011-2012 ($326 million) was transferred from traditional public districts that performed better on both the State Report Card and Performance Index.
Read the full report. Read the press release. Spreadsheet: change in state per pupil funding after charter deduction, by school district  

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Tagged in these Policy Areas: K-12 Education