NEPC Review: Public Charter Schools: A Great Value for Ohio's Public Education System

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/defaults/cn69m504s

Abstract

This Buckeye Institute policy brief sets out to document problems and inequities in charter school finance in Ohio, but it falls short in providing a comprehensive presentation of evidence. It ignores relevant research literature and extensive findings from the official state evaluation. It incorrectly assumes that charter schools serve the same types of students and provide the same range of services, and it does so based on only partial revenues. Perhaps most troubling, the report’s primary findings—-that districts gain revenue for each student who attends a charter school and that there would be a net loss of revenues for districts if charter schools were closed—-are based on an ungrounded and misleading interpretation of Ohio’s mechanism for funding schools. To illustrate these problems, this review presents a comprehensive description of particular cost advantages and disadvantages that charter schools face. Such comprehensiveness is important for seeing through one-sided arguments from opponents or advocates that may not take into consideration the whole range of factors that affect the equitable distribution of revenues.

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