Media coverage of debate surrounding HB 219, Charter School Omnibus, continues to accrue. This bill would ensure that students in public charter schools receive equal local funding–on par with what students in public district schools already receive.
WLOS interviewed Coalition Executive Director Lindalyn Kakadelis about the bill. You can find that article here.
In addition, Lindalyn authored an op-Ed on HB 219 that ran last week in Carolina Journal. Here’s an excerpt:
There is a stark difference in local education funding between public district school students and public charter school students. According to BEST NC, an education nonprofit, public charter school students in North Carolina received 37% less local funding than district school students in 2020-21.
A bill before the General Assembly (H.B. 219) would fix this disparity by requiring local administrators to fund public charter school and district school students equally …
… I believe public school funding should be for students, not systems. If we accept that premise, then it follows that all public school students deserve equal funding. A public charter school student is not worth 37% less than a district school student. All public school students are equally important and therefore worthy of equal taxpayer funding.
District school bureaucrats have offered numerous arguments opposing equal funding. On the surface, some of those arguments look compelling.
For example, district administrators argue their schools have services and programs that public charter schools don’t offer. Therefore, they say, district schools should have more local funding than public charter schools.
But it isn’t true that district schools offer certain programs and public charter schools offer none.
Public charter schools offer different programming. They do so because that is their legal mandate — they’re supposed to innovate and experiment, not mimic what already exists.
