Review of Charter School Funding: Dispelling Myths about EMOs, Expenditure Patterns, & Nonpublic Dollars

An NEPC Review funded by the Great Lakes Center

Key Takeaway: Report purporting to compare funding for charter and public district schools runs afoul of several basics of school finance research.

EAST LANSING, MI (January 18, 2022) -The latest in a series of reports from the University of Arkansas Department of Education unconvincingly attempts to show that charter schools are inequitably funded compared to public district schools. The report, Charter School Funding: Dispelling Myths about EMOs, Expenditure Patterns, & Nonpublic Dollars, runs into several major problems according to Dr. Mark Weber of Rutgers University and the New Jersey Policy Perspective in the latest NEPC review .

First, it relies on a proprietary (not publicly available) dataset to make its claims, but the data conflict with publicly reported figures, and the methods used to create the dataset are not documented.

The report's analysis also ignores several basics of school finance. Differences in student characteristics and school programming are not accounted for, categorical spending is conflated with potential profit taking from charter management organizations, and philanthropic giving is inadequately evaluated.

Dr. Weber concludes that the report's sparse documentation of its methods, combined with basic flaws in its analysis frameworks, render it useless in guiding charter school funding policy.

Find the review, by Mark Weber, at:

https://www.greatlakescenter.org

Find Charter School Funding: Dispelling Myths about EMOs, Expenditure Patterns, & Nonpublic Dollars, written by Angela K. Dills, Patrick J. Wolf, Corey A. DeAngelis, Jay F. May, Larry D. Maloney, and Cassidy Syftestad and published by University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform, at:

https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/wordpressua.uark.edu/dist/9/544/files/2018/10/21-1018-charter-school-funding-dispelling-myths-002.pdf

NEPC Reviews ( http://thinktankreview.org ) provide the public, policymakers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. NEPC Reviews are made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice: https://www.greatlakescenter.org

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), a university research center housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu/

About The Great Lakes Center

research for the purpose of informing education policy and to develop research-based resources for use by those who advocate for education reform.

Contact:
Michelle Renée Valladares: (720) 505-1958, michelle.valladares@colorado.edu
Mark Weber: (908) 358-5828, mark.weber@rutgers.edu