Charter Funding Compared to Traditional Publics

Lately I've been interested in understanding what it should cost to deliver an education that meets all state standards.   In the last two posts, I've been using the work of the 2004 school finance task force to shed light on that topic.  I'll return to that discussion in future posts, but I want to focus on what successful charter schools are spending as compared to traditional public schools.

I'm not an expert on this topic, but really, who is?   It is not my goal to dive into a charter versus traditional publics debate.  My view is that if charters and traditional publics were both funded based upon cost of service, with appropriate adjustment for student demographics, both forms of public school would have a fair chance to meet their state obligations.   Perhaps there is someone who could provide a comprehensive and encyclopedic presentation on this topic.  But I dived into the MDE expense and revenue reports for my home district, St. Cloud, and that of a respected charter, Harvest Prep, to see if I could get some hints on the "what should it cost" question.  These are just two examples out of a wide universe of examples, so one ought not to draw any final conclusions.  

Harvest Prep Demographics

Harvest Prep has 284 Adjusted students. Its demographics are shown above.Twenty-eight of its students, or 10.7 % are in special education.  It spends $1,073,834 on special education, or   $38,351 per special education student, or $4098 per each of its 284 students.Tracking special education revenues and expenditures is important because traditional publics run large deficits in special education. To my surprise, MDE data tells us that Harvest Prep's special education reimbursements for 2017 were higher than its expenses. Harvest Prep received 1,210,324.37 in revenue for special education in the same year, or $4,263 per each of its 282 adjusted students. 

According to MDE data,  Harvest Prep has total General Fund revenues of $20,972 per student and no special education deficit! 

Now, let's look at my home District St. Cloud.  Here are St. Cloud's demographic data:

St. Cloud District Demographics

 St. Cloud spends $32,661,733 on 1987 special education students, or $16,437 per special education student, half of what Harvest spends per special education student.  St. Cloud receives $18,903,497 reimbursement for those expenditures.  Where Harvest Prep breaks even on special education, St. Cloud runs a $13 million deficit.  

St. Cloud’s General Fund revenues amount to $13,638 per student, compared to Harvest Prep's $20,900 per student.  However, St. cloud's 13,638 per student must be adjusted by a $1300 per student subtraction to cover the special education deficit. In other words, if you want to compare St. Cloud’s general education funding to Harvest Prep’s you have to lop off $1300 yielding $12,300 per student compared to Harvest Prep’s $21,000.   

Since I'm not an expert in charter school funding, I may be missing some important nuances.  Let me know what you think.   But it seems to me that Harvest Prep's funding is perhaps an important piece of information on what districts that serve large populations of students with higher educational needs ought to be receiving.   More to come on this topic.