In the Nov. 23 News, Phil Rumore, head of the Buffalo Teachers Federation, laments the funding inequity between rich and poor districts in New York State, particularly in poor cities like Buffalo.

The state government attempts to mitigate this funding disparity through the school aid formula by giving more per student in low-wealth communities. For Buffalo, more than 80 percent of the district’s budget is financed by the state, rather than local property taxes. This ratio is among the highest of any district.

One of Rumore’s solutions to address the funding disparity is to have the state, rather than the city, pay directly for charter schools. In fact, this would make Buffalo financially worse off, not better. The reasons are two-fold. First, all charter school students are included in the district’s total enrollment to generate state aid and would be correspondingly removed in any state funding takeover. Second, the district’s lopsided state-aid ratio in its favor more than covers the cost of charter students, who get at least one-third less per pupil than the cost of district students.

A state takeover of district charter expenses would result in net cost to Buffalo. Instead, the current charter funding mechanism enables Buffalo to effectively profit from lower-cost charter students by playing the proverbial middle man.

Peter Murphy

Policy Director, New York Charter Schools Association