Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and his administrative staff rang in the new year by doling out the $42.2 million that D.C.’s Chief Financial Officer, Dr. Natwar Gandhi, projected as a surplus from initial predictions for fiscal year 2012’s revenue. Gray allocated over half the funds—$21.4 million—to D.C. Public Schools. The announcement stood in stark contrast to the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula used in the Per Pupil Funding Analysis in the Mayor’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2011, which established a requirement for public and public charter students to be funded equally. Since then, Executive Director of D.C. Association of Chartered Schools Ramona Edelin and supporters have spoken out to gain attention for the many financial pressures placed upon charter schools, and to call Mayor Gray out for contradicting previous statements that charter schools are full partners in the D.C. public school system.
Charter schools receive public funding in all areas but facility establishment and upkeep, and are characterized by the waivers they receive from their public school districts which allow them a certain amount of money in exchange for the promise of fulfilling performance goals established in the school’s charter. If the school does not produce higher academic results within 3 to 5 years, it is closed down. Though charters in D.C. have consistently produced higher numbers for several qualitative evaluations, including literacy, graduation, and college acceptance rates, their enrollment is confined to the students and parents concerned enough with education to look outside traditional options. This means that they typically enroll better students than traditional public schools.
With the expansion of school choice, traditional public schools in D.C. have suffered lower enrollment rates due to lack of funding and inadequate management; parents in neighborhoods with failing schools seek alternatives to public schools for their children. This means that, as enrollment drops, already struggling public schools receive less per-pupil funding and continue to spiral downward. This has created an achievement gap among D.C. students as seats in the comparably few high-performing charter schools are raffled off at random. Charter schools are undeniably positive when they work well, but even the good ones leave many children behind due to lack of space in their classrooms.
This discrepancy makes it clear that equal educational access for all children needs to be more clearly prioritized in the District. The extra millions were best spent as they were—on D.C. Public Schools—as it serves a larger group of students and has consistently shown lower performance levels. Though charter schools have provided additional resources and choice to students in D.C., they necessarily exclude a majority of kids from enrollment. Mayor Gray should be praised for affording all the funds to traditional public schools, as he showed a commitment to increasing educational opportunity for every student in the District.
