Tell it to the judge: Arizona charter schools take state education department to court over funding

The Arizona Charter Schools Association is in court today on behalf of its nearly 200 member schools asking a judge to block a decision by the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) to withhold millions of dollars in expected revenue from the schools. Two million dollars will be withheld from nearly 75,000 public charter school students this coming school year; nearly $6 million dollars will be withheld over the next five years.
The suit centers on the manner in which the ADE disburses money collected under Proposition 301, a voter-approved school funding tax. The proposition raised sales tax by 0.6 percent and required the new money to be sent to both traditional district schools and public charter schools monthly, with 60 percent of the money designated for teacher base-salary increases and teacher performance-pay and the remaining 40 percent earmarked for class size reduction, mentoring and dropout recovery programs, teacher development and teacher liability insurance premiums. The ADE says it miscalculated the amount of money due to each school, resulting in overpayments that it now seeks to recoup. The Arizona Charter School Association and its member schools argue that there wasn’t a miscalculation, and that the ADE does not have the authority to reconstruct the disbursement calculation without following the formal rulemaking process. The Arizona charter plaintiffs had been trying to resolve this dispute with the ADE for several months before resorting to this lawsuit. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools commends the Arizona Charter School Association and its member schools for doing everything possible to protect the classroom funds available to public charter school students. Arizona’s public charter school students already receive on average $1,578 fewer dollars per pupil than their district school peers. The loss of any funding only exacerbates this already-stark funding gap. We will keep you posted as the Arizona suit progresses. Renita Thukral is vice president of legal affairs at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Learn more:Prescott Daily Courier: Arizona Wrong to Punish Charter Schools for Overpayment