Sunday, June 20, 2010

Charters, Online Learning and RI's New Funding Formula

JB, a recent graduate of Brown's master's program in urban ed policy, comments on my question about the new funding formula and charters over at Flypaper:

The charters are losing some money from the state but they are getting more from some of the towns than they used to in the past. Overall they mostly lose between 2-10% once you account for the net difference.

The charters are happier, I think, because they have some strong language in the law about districts losing their state funding if they don’t send their local tuitions to charters (which has been a problem), the state is continuing to treat them more and more like any other LEA for funding purposes, and they will receive additional funding when they take on more challenging student populations.

In the end, charters will end up with essentially the same amount of money for each student as would have been spent had they been in their neighborhood school.

Perhaps. I just have difficulty believing that when a specific interest group is celebrating the passing of a complex appropriations bill that appears on the surface to not benefit them, well, that's a good time to keep a hand on your wallet.

Also, when Tom Vander Ark starts tweeting like this:

@deborahgist I'd like to know if we could chat about how money following the student fits with things like online learning.

And she replies:

@edReformer I'd love to chat about that.

Look out!

This is not an education plan, it is a business plan.

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