One More Time!
It is a simple fact that it costs taxpayers less to educate a student in a charter school than in most traditional schools. In a recent posting on this blog I congratulated the City of Nampa on the approval for their 6th charter school. I also mentioned that this new school, “Legacy Charter School” would open in a brand new facility without the benefit of any property tax paid by the Nampa school district patrons. This will be a great start and one that could be duplicated many, many times around the State.
One of the posted comments suggested that the Nampa patrons ought to sue the State in order to get equal funding due to the erroneous assumption that the traditional schools in the Nampa school district receive less taxpayer support than charter schools. Again it is a simple fact that charter schools receive LESS taxpayer support than traditional schools NOT more.
Following are some annual costs per ADA (average daily attendance) for the 2007/2008 school year according to the Idaho State Department of Education website.
Boise School District………………………….$12,909 per ADA
Anser Charter School………………………….$ 7,442 per ADA
Nampa School District………………………..$10,798 per ADA
Vallivue School District………………………$10,256 per ADA
Thomas Jefferson Charter School…………$7,019 per ADA
Nearly one hundred percent of the cost to educate a student is derived from the taxpayer, either from state sources, local sources (property tax) and to a lesser extent from the federal government.
It is simply misleading to select one tax or one source to make a cost comparison.
There are at least three different per pupil analysis of school funding. (By the way per pupil funding is NOT how schools are actually funded.) You cherry picked one. I’ll pick another. Again numbers confirmed by the State Department of Education:
Kuna $4,480
Falcon Ridge $5,555
Meridian $4,712
Compass $5,695
Meridian Charter $7,658
Medical Arts $7,588
North Star $6,205
Nampa $4,681
Liberty $6,414
Idaho Arts $5,793
Victory $5,698
Vallivue $4,789
Thomas Jefferson $6,403
Patrons in these districts should demand the state provide equal funding for all children. The gap between Liberty and Nampa is obscene and frankly immoral considering the poverty, language issues, and homelessness that the district’s schools must address every day. The same is true in Vallivue, Caldwell, and other Canyon County schools districts.
The at risk children in these district don’t have wealthly affluent parents who can start up a school or lobby lawmakers or line candidates’ pockets with contributions during elections.
The dilution of our local, state, and federal money is simply unacceptable in this massive deconsolidation of services.