RI's Charter Schools Expansion Increases Funding for Public School Students, Says Top Legal Expert
GoLocalProv News Team
RI's Charter Schools Expansion Increases Funding for Public School Students, Says Top Legal Expert
A group of legislators led by Senators Maryellen Goodwin, Sandra Cano, Ryan Pearson, and Ana Quezada has pushed legislation to place pass a three-year moratorium on the expansion of public charter school opportunities. The senators claim there will be an adverse fiscal impact on school districts like Providence.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTLiebman’s research is focused on the impact of funding formulas for public charter schools and the public school districts and his findings undermines the senators' claims
“Since it was first adopted in the 1990s [the charter school law in] Rhode Island has taken more steps than almost any other state maybe than any other state to moderate the fiscal impact of charter students. So right now every charter student who leaves a district and goes to a charter school actually leaves behind 12% or more of the funds that that district would have devoted to that student had that student remain there,” said Liebman.
“So what's happening is in Rhode Island every new charter school, every new charter expansion, every new charter student actually raises the fiscal situation for the kids who remain in the district. To put it another way, the amount of spending per student increases in Rhode Island every time a charter student leaves because they leave behind some of the funding," said Liebman.
Liebman who served as a top appointee in New York City’s Department of Education under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and has argued five capital and habeas corpus appeals in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and many others in lower federal and state courts. He is scheduled to testify before the Rhode Island House Finance Committee on Tuesday regarding the House version of the moratorium legislation.
“So what I did was to pick out the top states in the country in terms of the academic performance the comparative academic performance of charter school students and then go look at in a very detailed way the way their statutes work to both encourage academic improvement for students but also to be cognizant of the potential physical impact on school districts and the students who remain being educated in the public schools of the district,” said Liebman.
“So Rhode Island was one of those states that I researched because its charter schools are high performing relative to other students and relative to other states and I did a deep dive into the statute there to determine how that statute works both to get those good academic outcomes but also what the impact on school districts is of the students moving into charter schools and found that actually, Rhode Island is one of the top states in the country legislatively in terms of the steps that it has taken to moderate and indeed really avoid fiscal impact on school districts from students moving into charter schools," he added.