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FUNDING
CHARTER SCHOOLS: May 6, 2008 House Bill 1642 gives the woefully under-funded public charter schools state aid equal to what other poor public schools receive. This bill saves the independent charter schools for one year. New Hampshire has invested over 10 million in these schools. No one disagrees about their need and value to students. Senators decide this bill any day. Arguments against a fair funding system apparently have been invented to end these schools. None of the arguments are true, when studied. The system seems purposely unfair. The first argument was: We can’t give these public schools more state aid than other public schools. According to state reports, dozens of towns receive more state aid than these charter schools. The Senators know this. Everyone handling state aid knows this. Nevertheless, “we can’t give these schools more” was the lead argument for years. The second argument was: We cannot take money from school districts. But the state laws say districts “shall” provide “opportunities” for all public school students and we shall have a funding system of both state and local money. Districts send local funds to choice schools now—the regional vocational school model. Everyone knows this. The next argument was: Districts should not share any public funding with a school it did not help create. This argument is nonsense. Almost every public school district sends tuition money to private schools or out-of-district public schools for various reasons. Everyone knows this. Official state reports show over $100 million spent on public school tuitions. Every school sending tuition to another school didn’t create that school. A convincing argument is: We don’t have the money. Even this doesn’t hold up. Approximately 200 students should be off district funding counts from 2003-2004 so the money needed should approximate the money reduced in district aid. Recently, charter schools were informed that state aid to districts for charter students may continue long after their students are no longer in the district count. Starving charter schools now have to grapple with the “there’s no money” argument knowing the funds they need are actually going to their students’ resident districts. Even the statutory inflation adjustment for the original $3598 these schools received is unfair. The state aid adjustment is based on “…the average annual percentage rate of inflation based on the northeast region consumer price index…US Department of Labor…based on the 4 calendar years ending 18?months before the beginning of the fiscal year for which the tuition rate is to be determined.” In the last seven (7) years this CPI increase ranged from 1.6% to 3.8%. During the same seven (7) years New Hampshire’s public schools statewide had annual increases of 4.4% to 13.6%. In other words, each year the unfair funding allocation buys less and becomes more unfair. In a state where last year’s average cost per student statewide was $12,969, funding charter schools at $3800 per year and telling parents to raise whatever else is needed is too extreme. There is no argument nationwide to support this situation. The State Board of Education, which rarely takes a position on funding, voted to “urge” the legislature to fund the state’s charter schools. Our Senators need to replace the funding system with something more equitable, such as the funding recommended in House Bill 1642. This situation is not defensible. Susan Hollins Corroborating Information taken from New Hampshire Department of Education Financial Reports and Department of Labor Northeast Region Consumer Price Index reports. The fixed % of inflation in the charter school law is one more way the public funding of these schools is truly unfair. The school industry has actual increases which are completely unrelated to the CPI in northern New England. Actual school industry costs drive increases = retirement, workers compensation, insurance, fuel, new state education mandates for audits and compliance work, cost of contracted services, etc. For chartered public schools, the statutory fixed % for inflation increasingly lowers the buying power of the already-low pupil public funding allocation each year.
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