Loss of Funds to Charter Schools

This morning, I road tested a new website designed to help citizens in Ohio better understand how the 400 publicly-funded charter schools in their state compare to their traditional public schools.  The website is called KnowYourCharter.com.  For my road test, I selected my alma mater, the Milton-Union Exempted Village Schools.  A 1,500-student district located 12 miles north of Dayton, Milton-Union not only lost $252,223 this year in state funding to publicly-funded charter schools but received less in state funding than all of its charter school counterparts.  While Milton-Union received $4,115 per student, state funding per student for eight area charter schools was as follows:  Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow ($6,440), Virtual Community School of Ohio ($6,131), Ohio Connections Academy, Inc. ($6,142), Pathway School of Discovery ($6,435), Life Skills Center of Dayton ($8,046), Greater Ohio Virtual School ($6,484), Mound Street Health Careers Academy ($8,076) and Summit Academy Transition High School of Dayton ($16,745).  Statewide, Ohio’s public schools are losing more than $900 million a year in state funding to publicly-funded charter schools.