Reports find higher satisfaction, less funding at charter schools

Charter schools have higher teacher satisfaction levels but less funding than traditional public schools, a pair of reports has found.

The University of Arkansas and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group, released the reports separately on Wednesday.

The alliance commissioned the Harris Poll to survey 1,211 public school teachers. The survey found 97% of charter school teachers reported overall satisfaction with their jobs, compared to 83% of teachers at traditional school campuses.

The survey also found that charter school teachers expressed greater satisfaction than other teachers with their autonomy in the classroom, motivation, school culture, administrators and resources.

“We believe it’s because charter school teachers have greater agency and freedom to run their classrooms free of the bureaucracy that comes with being part of a district run system,” Nina Rees, president of the alliance and a former Department of Education official under the George W. Bush administration, told The Washington Times.

Charter schools are independently managed public schools that operate under laws that vary from state to state.

Among survey respondents, 90% of charter teachers said they “feel valued by school administration,” compared to 68% of district teachers. And 79% of charter teachers said they “are as or more motivated than when they started” work, compared to 34% of district teachers.

According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, all but four states — Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Vermont— allow charter schools.

The alliance reports there are about 7,800 charter schools with 3.7 million students nationwide, about 7.5% of all K-12 public school students.

In a separate study released Wednesday, five researchers from the University of Arkansas found higher levels of federal, state, local and nonpublic funding at district schools than charter schools in 18 cities across 16 states.

According to their analysis, charter schools received about 30%, or $7,147, less funding per student in 2019-2020. That was down 3 percentage points from a 33% gap the university recorded in 2017-2018 during a previous study.

Charter schools have lagged behind their district counterparts ever since the university started tracking funding equity issues in 2002-2003, said lead researcher and report author Patrick Wolf, a professor in the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform.

“Public charter schools in U.S. cities have been underfunded by 21% or more relative to traditional public schools for 20 years,” Mr. Wolf told The Times.

While higher special education populations in most traditional public schools explain some of the funding inequity, he said differences in student advantages do not account for all of it.

The study noted that local tax funding favored district schools over charter schools by a wide margin, with all other funding sources combined favoring charter schools only slightly. The net difference explains the spending gap of $7,147 per student.

The biggest percentage gap occurred in Atlanta, where the average student in a charter school receives 53% less funding than a peer in a district-run public school.

The study found the steepest difference in dollars in Camden, New Jersey, where public school students received $19,711 more per pupil than charter schools in 2019-2020.

Students in Camden charter schools received almost $20,000 per student toward their education, while their peers in the Camden district schools received nearly $40,000.

Other cities covered by the study included: Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Houston, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Memphis, New Orleans, New York, Oakland, Phoenix, San Antonio, Tulsa and Washington D.C.

Weighted student funding would eliminate the funding gaps between charter and district schools in these cities and ensure “equitable funding” for all campuses, Mr. Wolf noted.

“Take all the revenue streams that fund public schooling and feed them into a single formula based on the level of need for each student and then make those funds fully portable to whichever public school the student chooses to attend, whether district-run or charter,” he said.

The reports come as public education faces a pandemic-era staffing crisis, with officials nationwide looking to fast-track teaching credentials heading into the new school year.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 45% of public schools started the 2022-2023 academic year with one or more unfilled positions. Shortages were especially acute on urban and rural campuses and in specialized subjects like math and science. 

In the survey released Wednesday, 52% of charter teachers said they “never considered leaving the profession,” compared to 22% of district teachers.

Some public education officials not connected with the reports said the findings confirm decades-long trends.

“Charter schools have had to run more efficiently because they do not typically get the same funding as district schools,” Andrea Haitz, a Colorado mother of three and president of Mesa County’s school board, told The Times.

“Charter school teachers are usually paid less and willing to take less for various reasons,” she added. “They either love the school’s pedagogy or flexibility, and I’ve heard many say they truly get to ’teach.’”