After years of explosive growth, charter schools now educate roughly a third of the District's public school students. Unlike regular public schools, charters must find their own facilities.
During the past year, charters received a facilities grant of $3,109 per pupil from the city, totaling about $79 million. The goal was to give charters equality with regular public schools. New charters usually rent space. Once established, they generally turn to banks to obtain long-term money for building costs. The banks, of course, must be assured of repayment.
Unfortunately, Mayor Adrian Fenty's proposed 2010 budget allocates just $66 million for charters' facilities. Furthermore, the charters have to apply individually for their funding.
No well-run bank would make a multiyear loan to a charter that has to apply annually for the money to pay it back. Thus, most charters would be unable to build facilities for their growing enrollments.
Thankfully, the D.C. Council has tentatively agreed to increase the charters' building allocation to $82.7 million, or $2,800 per student for the almost 26,000 students now attending charter schools.
Under the proposal, charters would receive the payments automatically, an attempt to facilitate their ability to borrow from banks.
We fear banks would still be wary when they see that next year's per-student grant is lower than this year's. Bankers might wonder what would prevent the council from lowering the figure even more in coming years. We urge the council to ensure the allocation is no smaller than the current year's $3,109 per student.