Charter School Funding

by Linda Kobashigawa

Attendance in charter schools is important, not only for the students attending, but for these schools to continue to provide the education their students need and deserve.

The first United States charter school opened in 1992. Three years later, 19 states had charter school laws in effect, and by 2003, 40 states, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, had began opening charter schools.

In the last 10 years, the number of charter schools has been steadily growing. In 1999, there were 1,542 charter schools in the U.S., and in 2009, that number increased almost three times to 4,956 U. S. charter schools. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and President Barack Obama all support the creation and funding of charter schools.

Along with private donations and fundraisers, public charter schools receive much of their funding from the federal and state government through taxes. However, since charter schools depend on students’ attendance to receive government funding, it is extremely difficult for these schools to obtain adequate funds because student enrollment is very low, especially in newer charter schools.

According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), the average amount each public charter school receives per student is only about 73 percent of what non-charter public schools receive.

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Education gave $216 million to charter schools through its Charter Schools Program. However, this program only provides funding for the initial start-up, planning and program design of charter schools.

There are many grants and programs from the federal and state government that fund charter schools. Their main source is the General-Purpose Grant.

According to the Charter Schools Development Center (CSDC), this grant uses a measure called average daily attendance (ADA) to determine the amount of funds given to charter schools. The ADA is found by the amount of students attending class each day.

ACEL Fresno, a tuition-free public charter school, is the most recent charter school to open in Fresno, Calif. Its approach to learning is to get students outside the classroom, to use technology as an integral part of learning and to increase students’ appreciation for their community.

According to the principal of ACEL, Dave Childers, 55 students were enrolled during the 2009-10 school year. The school is currently accepting ninth and 10th-graders until it is a full four-year high school. It is temporarily based at the Boys and Girls Club on Belmont Avenue, but hopes to find a permanent location for the next school year.

ACEL opened in August 2009, and like other charter schools, receives much of its funding from the General-Purpose Grant. Since ACEL is extremely new to the education system, its student population is low, which makes it difficult to receive enough funding from grants alone.

ACEL’s main goal is to increase its student population to collect more funding, allowing it to give its students a high-quality education, and community-oriented, out-of-the-classroom learning experiences.