After many weeks of anticipation, the Legislative Service Commission has made preliminary estimates on the cost of Gov. John Kasich's education plan for Charter Schools. The bottom line is Charters will get a 4.5% increase under the plan.
For the last week or so there was real concern that the plan would lead to Charter School cuts. Instead, it represents an increase. At first glance of the LSC projections, 75 Charter Schools would receive less funding, which is about 20% of all Charters. About 60% of traditional schools would get cut under Kasich's Plan, but for a pot of guaranteed money that Kasich has indicated would go away soon.
Some of those Charters that get cut, though, are high-performing Charters, like the Intergenerational School in Cleveland, which would lose $20,000.
Now the challenge is this: Last week it seemed that Charters and Traditional Public Schools were starting to coalesce around the idea of raising the per pupil foundation aid in Kasich's Plan from the really low $5,000 per pupil (the lowest in two decades, in constant dollars) to a more robust number around $6,000 per pupil.
Will these Charter runs be enough to convince Charters to back off that demand? And will the Charter-Traditional School War be perpetuated with the results of these Charter School projections that show Charters doing a bunch better than Traditional Schools?
I hope the answer to both questions is an emphatic "No."
