Reply to Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The city will spend astronomical amounts renovating schools, but only if they're DCPS. DC spent $180 million redoing Duke Ellington, which only has 600 or so students. Works out to about $300,000 per student. [/quote]

Banneker got a $130 million renovation (700 students) [/quote]

There's a long list of DCPS high schools that have gotten $100 million+ renovations[/quote]

How long exactly is that long list?

What portion of DCPS schools is it?[/quote]

The city has spent $3 billion and counting remodeling public schools (but not charters!)...[/quote]

Some of the renovations are really over the top. Apparently money is no object for some schools. [/quote]

It's kinda hilarious how the city treats charter school kids like red headed stepchildren. You would not think a government would or could go so far out of its way to be shitty to a group of children. [/quote]

DC is obsessed with the “right” people using city services. It IS racial. It is a low level counter insurgency waged against “transplants.” To turn a phrase, you face twice as much scrutiny and be twice as good. [/quote]

I think the city still resents the charter school system, even though half the kids in the city are now it in, and the way it tries to get back at it is by starving the schools of money. The difference between DCPS facilities and charter facilities is mind blowing. I would not think it is legal to treat an entire class of children like third class citizens. [/quote]

I realize this thread is talking about facilities funding, but I think the other big part of the conversation is that for years, charters were expanding/opening with seemingly little thought as to how many schools would be in a certain neighborhood, how many seats would be open, etc. The birthrate has stopped increasing, we have too many schools/seats, and that is hard to un-do. DCPS closed a lot of their buildings 20ish+ years ago, and they can't close many more bc there needs to be guaranteed/neighborhood/by-right options for all students within a certain distance from their home. Not to mention the budget of the city overall has been hit hard recently, so you end up with less money all around. Many people argue that charter schools opened to respond to a need/demand, which is true -but the lack of big picture planning resulted in a large number of independent charter schools opening, many of them serving the same communities with similar models. 
All that to say, it is a lot more nuanced and complex than just 'give us more money'.[/quote]

Seems a little rich to blame charters when the city routinely spends $100 million to renovate DCPS schools that are already severely under-enrolled. Anacostia High School has 250 students in total. [/quote]

People here are obsessed with poor Black kids getting a school building over a decade ago. It's weird and unhealthy.[/quote]

Here's a list of major school renovations in Washington D.C.:

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million 
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million 
Jefferson -- $90 million
Truesdell -- $80 million 
Janney -- $70 million
Anacostia -- $60 million

Notice anything weird about which schools the city decides get the fancy renovations? [/quote]

Don't forget:

Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
MLK -- $65 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Burroughs -- $75 million

All DCPS. No charters. [/quote]

Again, DCPS and DGS do not renovate charters. That's not how the system is set up. Part of the point of being a charter school is getting to manage your own renovations and not dealing with DCPS and DGS. You seem not to understand this. It's not some big conspiracy. It's how it's supposed to work.

[/quote]

Nobody cares which pocket the money comes from. The point is that the city is starving children in charters of resources while simultaneously building palaces for kids who happen to go to DCPS. Everyone should be treated equally.[/quote]

You seem to think charters never renovate, though. And that is simply not true. There's no centralized list, but they do renovate. People provided you a short list already.

The point of facilities funding is charters can decide whether to save up for renovations and how much to spend. If they choose not to, in favor of spending on other things, that's up to them. And if they stupidly overspent on a building and can't afford to maintain it, too bad. Choices have consequences.[/quote]

Well, this is totally wrong. The reason [b]one system has really nice facilities [/b]and the other has crappy facilities is because one system is given a lot of money by the city and the other is not. It's not complicated. [/quote]m

You keep repeating this misinformation.

How many DCPS have you been in?

Why don't you make a list of the really nice DCPS schools, the adequate DCPS schools, and the overcrowded and/or very worn DCPS schools?

I guarantee you that the "really nice" category would be dwarfed by the others.[/quote]

In my experience the high schools in DCPS are palaces, middle schools are nice, and elementary schools are uneven. 50/50.

People are laser focused on the high schools because they’re the nicest facilities with the worst outcomes[/quote]

Jackson-Reed, Macarthur, Walls, Cardozo, CHEC -- none of these are palaces.  [/quote]

Have you been to Latin, 2nd Street? It is like a time capsule from 1975. [/quote]

Ask them why they haven't renovated. Lots of charters figure out a way. [/quote]

yeah, can't they just have a bake sale or something? [/quote]

In the most recent FAR Latin had net assets of $24.7 million and 249 days of cash on hand. Their financial position is excellent. Maybe because they've been frugal. But if they wanted to finance some renovations they definitely could. [/quote]

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