Funding Cap Diminishes Children’s Educations (NY)

July 9, 2010

Writes author Homer Hickam, “It’s better to confess ignorance than to provide it.”

Last year, a group of charter school teachers and students spent a day in Albany. There, legislators told them candidly the reason a charter school funding cap was put into the state budget was that they were instructed it was a good thing and no one told them otherwise. Charter opponents were vocal, charter advocates were silent, and elected officials used the information they had available. It was understandable. They apologized and confessed ignorance.

Fast forward nearly 300 days and the funding freeze remains in the budget. Despite several attempts to educate state senators and Assembly members about the cap’s crippling effect on charters — it costs state charters about $52 million each year—no action has been taken to remove it. At this point, legislators are providing ignorance.

When charter schools were created 10 years ago, a law was passed granting them two-thirds of the per-pupil money the state paid each district. The other one-third stays with each student’s home district, even though he/she is being educated elsewhere. While the law was not as equitable as Massachusetts’ statute that gives 100 percent of the money for 100 percent of the student, it was a start.

Last year, though, that cha nged. The funding cap forced charters to operate on two-thirds of a frozen amount of money (at 2007 levels). Today, that 66 percent per-pupil figure is closer to 50 percent.

It seems that all New Yorkers understand the state is in dire financial peril. That said, it seems that stories are popping up every day about groups asking for more. A mentality that “cuts are necessary as long as they don’t affect me” seems prevalent.

But the charter-funding cap creates no savings. It doesn’t ease any burdens. It doesn’t help taxpayers. The money taken from charters doesn’t go to fill the state’s empty cupboards. It stays in each student’s home district, creating an even larger disparity between the place the child is from and the place he/she is actually getting educated. Imagine Robin Hood waking up one day and deciding he’s had it backwards all this time and starts taking from those that already do more with less and giving to those that have other revenue streams from which to dip.

No, the funding cap just hurts. It’s crippling schools like ours; threatening the existence of schools that are, simply put, revitalizing urban education in areas like Buffalo and New York City.

Legislators need to thaw the charter-school funding freeze and undo their admitted mistake from last year. They need to do what is right by the thousands of children who attend charter schools in New York. Members of the senate and the Assembly have already confessed their ignorance. It is time they stop providing it.