The cost of charter schools for school districts continue to grow. Since 2007-08, charter school tuition costs have grown by more than $1.9 billion, or 327.6% while charter school enrollments have only increased 151.6%. On its face, it would seem that school districts could reduce their costs when students transfer to charter schools, but that is not the case for several reasons.įirst, charter schools not only attract students from school district schools, but also from private schools and home-school programs. This results in school districts absorbing entirely new educational costs. Second, there are stranded costs that stay with a school district even after a student leaves for a charter school. Imagine a school district elementary school with 50 children in its 3rd grade class at the start of the 2020-21 school year. In the elementary school, those students are divided into two classrooms of 25. If five of those students leave the elementary school for a charter school, those students are taking with them as much as $21,000 each (depending on the school district’s tuition rate and assuming none of them are special education students). Where would the school district be able to reduce costs? They can’t. The district would not be able to reduce its teaching staff, building space, maintenance or utility bills. Transportation routes to their buildings would remain unchanged, so the number of drivers, buses and fuel costs remain the same. And, the district would have to maintain enough books and educational supplies for those students in case they decide to return to the district school.Ī 2017 study of the financial impact of charter expansion conducted by Research for Action found that impact of students leaving the district for charter schools, both short term and long term, was consistently negative due to stranded costs. Although the negative financial impact was expected to decrease over time, school districts were never able to recover savings that equaled or surpassed what the district paid in charter school tuition. Even five years after the student leaves, school districts would only be able to recover 44-68% of the costs of charter tuition for each student who left for a charter school. School districts are required to provide transportation services to charter school students even when the charter school is located up to 10 miles outside of a district’s geographic boundaries and on days when the district schools are not in session.įourth, charter school authorization costs. School districts, which authorize a brick-and-mortar charter school are responsible for holding public hearings and evaluating charter school applications. In addition, the authorizing school district also monitors the charter school’s performance. Should the authorizing school district attempt to revoke a school’s charter based on performance, that school district would be in for a lengthy and costly legal fight.
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