Report: NC charter schools don't get fair share

North Carolina's charter schools averaged $1,722 per pupil less than the state's traditional public schools in 2011,  according to a new report from the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform.

"Charter School Funding:  Inequity Expands" follows up on similar national studies done by other groups, comparing funding in 2003 and 2007.  The latest study is part of the university's School Choice Demonstration Project and is funded by the Walton Family Foundation.

"Since public charter schools are becoming increasingly politically popular and therefore common in the U.S., we might expect that they would be funded at levels comparable to traditional public schools. After all, they are public schools, too,"  the authors write.  "We would be mistaken."

The researchers found a national gap of 28.4 percent,  with charters averaging $3,814 less per pupil from combined state,  local,  federal and private money.  In North Carolina the gap was 17.2 percent,  or $8,277 per charter student compared with $9,999 per district student.

As charter advocate Larry Bumgarner and I have been discussing in recent comments,  per-pupil funding is a complex and confusing system.  The university's report on North Carolina provides a detailed explanation of state funding formulas. "In practice charter school State revenues are nearing parity with district per pupil State revenues, which is significant,"  the report notes.

The N.C. breakdown cites causes of the funding gap, including the absence of local money for charter school buildings and a lower level of federal funding for charters.  (Note that this study landed during the recession,  when federal stimulus money was coming in to local districts.  It also came before North Carolina's charter school expansion,  which might or might not affect per-pupil spending.)

The study does a breakout on Wake County charters and district schools,  but there's nothing on Mecklenburg,  which has the largest charter school enrollment.  I was interested to see that statewide,  charter schools served a slightly higher percentage of low-income and special-education students than district schools.  As the report notes,  that can vary widely by school.

The report gives North and South Carolina D grades for charter/district discrepancies.  Tennessee,  where charter schools averaged $15 per pupil more than district schools,  got the only A.

Also on charters and district schools:  I'm moving toward getting payroll data from area charters,  Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and nearby districts.  Expect more on that after the Observer/PNC forum on teacher compensation,  which takes place Monday evening.  Seats are still available;  click here for details and to reserve a seat.

Teacher merit raises: $500 or $5,000?

I'm getting a lot of questions about a story in this morning's paper about the plan to offer four-year contracts to a limited number of teachers as tenure is phased out.

In the past, I've referred to it as a $500-a-year raise, which is the language in the budget bill.  T. Keung Hui,  my counterpart at the News & Observer and the lead writer on today's story,  called it a $5,000 raise.  People are understandably confused.

Hui used the four-year cumulative raise provided by $500 annual bumps.  The first year, a teacher who takes the four-year package will make $500 more than counterparts who don't get the raise.  The second year that teacher gets another $500 bump, so now she's $1,000 ahead of peers.  The third year she's up by $1,500 and the fourth by $2,000. If you add up the extra for those four years,  it comes to a total of $5,000.   The key is that the $500 specified in the law is a pay raise, not just a series of annual bonuses.

No slowdown in Charlotte-area charter interest

I'm starting to sound like a broken record:  Mecklenburg County again dominates the state in charter-school interest,  based on letters of intent to seek charters for 2015-16.  The N.C. Office of Charter Schools got 170 letters by Friday's deadline,  and 43 were for Mecklenburg. Another 20 were for surrounding counties; charters can take students across county lines.

Next highest was Wake with 20,  then Durham and Guilford with 12 each.

That doesn't mean that many new schools will open,  of course.  This is just the first step in a long process.  Full applications are due Dec. 6.  They'll be reviewed by a charter school advisory board,  with the state Board of Education making the final decision about which will be approved for state,  local and federal money.  The state got 156 letters of intent for 2014 charters,  with 70 full applications that were eventually whittled to the 26 that just won approval. Eleven of those are in Mecklenburg and surrounding counties.

Students at Invest Collegiate, a charter that opened in uptown Charlotte in August

The big question is why the Charlotte region is spawning so much interest in charters,  which are alternative public schools run by independent boards.  Critics of CMS say it's dissatisfaction with district schools,  which still serve about 80 percent of the county's school-age children.  School board Chairman Mary McCray disagrees.  She noted that CMS already offers many of the themes that charter schools are touting,  from math-science magnets to credit-recovery programs for at-risk teens.

"They are basing their themes on us,"  McCray said.  "It's not like we're copying them."

Eddie Goodall of Union County,  a former state senator who now heads the N.C. Public Charter Schools Association,  theorizes that it boils down to risk and reward.  There are plenty of potential students in Charlotte and its suburbs,  while less densely populated areas pose a bigger risk of failing to draw enough students to survive.  Meanwhile,  counties that provide more for their local school district also channel a per-pupil share when students go to charters,  making the potential reward richer in Mecklenburg than in poorer rural counties.

Probably true  --  but it still doesn't explain why the densely populated Triangle area,  with all its higher education, high-tech and government resources,  isn't spawning a similar level of would-be school entrepreneurs.