[Local-Maine-Schools] Public charter schools and local taxpayers

[Brian Hubbell]

Dick,

There's more to it than that.  Despite the Governor's frequent campaign
assertion and statement during his budget address that he wanted less money
spent on school administration and more money spent "in the classroom," the
charter bill allows the state charter commission to retain 3% of the total
per-pupil allocation transferred out of the public schools into the charter
schools that they authorize.

Make sure to read Gail Marshall's open letter to Senator Langley posted on
MDIschools.net:
http://forum.mdischools.net/state/20110522/charters-open-letter-to-Langley

<http://forum.mdischools.net/state/20110522/charters-open-letter-to-Langley>
-Brian

----------------------

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 10:53 AM, Dick Atlee <atlee at umd.edu> wrote:

> The BDN article two days ago about the now-much-amended charter-schools
> bill mentioned the following tidbit, which might be of interest to local
> taxpayers, even with the limits set by amendments on how many kids could
> desert their town schools for charter schools.
>
> ----------------
>
> http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/05/22/politics/charter-schools-boosted-by-strong-support-on-education-committee/
>
> The Legislature’s Office of Fiscal and Program Review, which estimates the
> cost of proposed bills, said that the state-level administration of charter
> schools could be absorbed within existing resources by the Department of
> Education, but flagged potential financial losses for local school districts
> in a fiscal note for the original bill.
>
> “The requirement that excepts up to 1 percent of state and local operating
> funds follow each student to the public charter school the student attends
> may result in a significant redistribution of state and local per-pupil
> allocation,” reads the fiscal note. “The impact to individual school units
> cannot be determined at this time.”
>
> The fiscal note also states that there will be costs to the state
> associated with teachers who take leaves of absences to teach at charter
> schools, but did not estimate what those will be.
> ----------------
>
> [That last bit is interesting -- is it only the state that gets hit with
> such a cost?]
>
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