Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 13:04     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


DCPS MUST serve them. Charters don’t have to serve anyone.
Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 13:03     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


Again kids they MUST serve. Charters don’t have to serve anyone.


Cute. Of course, the reason why so few kids attend these schools is because families have abandoned them en masse for charters.


Yes and that is what people are mad about. Save the system that must educate everyone (who comes) and f*** those kids and families who choose to opt out of that system. If they think they'll get a worse education in the neighborhood school, that's the families fault for not moving to a better neighborhood.


If parents trusted DCPS to prepare their children for the future, they would send their kids there. It's as simple as that.

Take a look at the best middle school list in DC: https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia

7/10 in the top ten are charters, and and 14/20 of the top 20. basis, latin, DC prep, Friendship PCS,

But, the list for elementary (10/10 DCPS) and for high school are mostly DCPS (6/10 DCPS). So, these families come back when they assess (corrrectly!) that the schools will work for their kids.



Actually, the edscape data shows this really clearly -- a huge portion of kids at application schools are coming from charters (at Banneker, Bard, McKinley Tech and Phelps, more kids come from charters than DCPS). Look at the "9th backwards to 8th" for application schools chart.

https://edscape.dc.gov/page/student-enrollment-pathways



I'm not sure how you're reaching that conclusion. For n less than 10, are you eyeballing the size of the box on the graphic?



yes, look at the schools where green is larger than blue (the application schools I listed. Walls takes more DCPS)


I'm not sure that's actually how it works. The purpose of the n less than 10 rule is to conceal the number of kids, so to show it by size of box would defeat the purpose of the rule.


Sure. The point remains -- those application schools take tons of charter students (and I've been in Banneker and Phelps in the classrooms and know this to be true).


Okay....is this some sort of gotcha you're proving?
Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 13:01     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


Again kids they MUST serve. Charters don’t have to serve anyone.


Cute. Of course, the reason why so few kids attend these schools is because families have abandoned them en masse for charters.


Yes and that is what people are mad about. Save the system that must educate everyone (who comes) and f*** those kids and families who choose to opt out of that system. If they think they'll get a worse education in the neighborhood school, that's the families fault for not moving to a better neighborhood.


If parents trusted DCPS to prepare their children for the future, they would send their kids there. It's as simple as that.

Take a look at the best middle school list in DC: https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia

7/10 in the top ten are charters, and and 14/20 of the top 20. basis, latin, DC prep, Friendship PCS,

But, the list for elementary (10/10 DCPS) and for high school are mostly DCPS (6/10 DCPS). So, these families come back when they assess (corrrectly!) that the schools will work for their kids.



Actually, the edscape data shows this really clearly -- a huge portion of kids at application schools are coming from charters (at Banneker, Bard, McKinley Tech and Phelps, more kids come from charters than DCPS). Look at the "9th backwards to 8th" for application schools chart.

https://edscape.dc.gov/page/student-enrollment-pathways



I'm not sure how you're reaching that conclusion. For n less than 10, are you eyeballing the size of the box on the graphic?



yes, look at the schools where green is larger than blue (the application schools I listed. Walls takes more DCPS)


I'm not sure that's actually how it works. The purpose of the n less than 10 rule is to conceal the number of kids, so to show it by size of box would defeat the purpose of the rule.


Sure. The point remains -- those application schools take tons of charter students (and I've been in Banneker and Phelps in the classrooms and know this to be true).
Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 12:57     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


Again kids they MUST serve. Charters don’t have to serve anyone.


Cute. Of course, the reason why so few kids attend these schools is because families have abandoned them en masse for charters.


Yes and that is what people are mad about. Save the system that must educate everyone (who comes) and f*** those kids and families who choose to opt out of that system. If they think they'll get a worse education in the neighborhood school, that's the families fault for not moving to a better neighborhood.


If parents trusted DCPS to prepare their children for the future, they would send their kids there. It's as simple as that.

Take a look at the best middle school list in DC: https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia

7/10 in the top ten are charters, and and 14/20 of the top 20. basis, latin, DC prep, Friendship PCS,

But, the list for elementary (10/10 DCPS) and for high school are mostly DCPS (6/10 DCPS). So, these families come back when they assess (corrrectly!) that the schools will work for their kids.



Actually, the edscape data shows this really clearly -- a huge portion of kids at application schools are coming from charters (at Banneker, Bard, McKinley Tech and Phelps, more kids come from charters than DCPS). Look at the "9th backwards to 8th" for application schools chart.

https://edscape.dc.gov/page/student-enrollment-pathways



I'm not sure how you're reaching that conclusion. For n less than 10, are you eyeballing the size of the box on the graphic?



yes, look at the schools where green is larger than blue (the application schools I listed. Walls takes more DCPS)


I'm not sure that's actually how it works. The purpose of the n less than 10 rule is to conceal the number of kids, so to show it by size of box would defeat the purpose of the rule.
Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 12:56     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


Again kids they MUST serve. Charters don’t have to serve anyone.


Cute. Of course, the reason why so few kids attend these schools is because families have abandoned them en masse for charters.


Yes and that is what people are mad about. Save the system that must educate everyone (who comes) and f*** those kids and families who choose to opt out of that system. If they think they'll get a worse education in the neighborhood school, that's the families fault for not moving to a better neighborhood.


If parents trusted DCPS to prepare their children for the future, they would send their kids there. It's as simple as that.

Take a look at the best middle school list in DC: https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia

7/10 in the top ten are charters, and and 14/20 of the top 20. basis, latin, DC prep, Friendship PCS,

But, the list for elementary (10/10 DCPS) and for high school are mostly DCPS (6/10 DCPS). So, these families come back when they assess (corrrectly!) that the schools will work for their kids.



Actually, the edscape data shows this really clearly -- a huge portion of kids at application schools are coming from charters (at Banneker, Bard, McKinley Tech and Phelps, more kids come from charters than DCPS). Look at the "9th backwards to 8th" for application schools chart.

https://edscape.dc.gov/page/student-enrollment-pathways



I'm not sure how you're reaching that conclusion. For n less than 10, are you eyeballing the size of the box on the graphic?



yes, look at the schools where green is larger than blue (the application schools I listed. Walls takes more DCPS)
Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 12:53     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
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Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


Again kids they MUST serve. Charters don’t have to serve anyone.


Cute. Of course, the reason why so few kids attend these schools is because families have abandoned them en masse for charters.


Yes and that is what people are mad about. Save the system that must educate everyone (who comes) and f*** those kids and families who choose to opt out of that system. If they think they'll get a worse education in the neighborhood school, that's the families fault for not moving to a better neighborhood.


If parents trusted DCPS to prepare their children for the future, they would send their kids there. It's as simple as that.

Take a look at the best middle school list in DC: https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia

7/10 in the top ten are charters, and and 14/20 of the top 20. basis, latin, DC prep, Friendship PCS,

But, the list for elementary (10/10 DCPS) and for high school are mostly DCPS (6/10 DCPS). So, these families come back when they assess (corrrectly!) that the schools will work for their kids.



Actually, the edscape data shows this really clearly -- a huge portion of kids at application schools are coming from charters (at Banneker, Bard, McKinley Tech and Phelps, more kids come from charters than DCPS). Look at the "9th backwards to 8th" for application schools chart.

https://edscape.dc.gov/page/student-enrollment-pathways



I'm not sure how you're reaching that conclusion. For n less than 10, are you eyeballing the size of the box on the graphic?

Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 12:46     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


Again kids they MUST serve. Charters don’t have to serve anyone.


Cute. Of course, the reason why so few kids attend these schools is because families have abandoned them en masse for charters.


Yes and that is what people are mad about. Save the system that must educate everyone (who comes) and f*** those kids and families who choose to opt out of that system. If they think they'll get a worse education in the neighborhood school, that's the families fault for not moving to a better neighborhood.


If parents trusted DCPS to prepare their children for the future, they would send their kids there. It's as simple as that.

Take a look at the best middle school list in DC: https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia

7/10 in the top ten are charters, and and 14/20 of the top 20. basis, latin, DC prep, Friendship PCS,

But, the list for elementary (10/10 DCPS) and for high school are mostly DCPS (6/10 DCPS). So, these families come back when they assess (corrrectly!) that the schools will work for their kids.



Actually, the edscape data shows this really clearly -- a huge portion of kids at application schools are coming from charters (at Banneker, Bard, McKinley Tech and Phelps, more kids come from charters than DCPS). Look at the "9th backwards to 8th" for application schools chart.

https://edscape.dc.gov/page/student-enrollment-pathways

Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 12:43     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


Again kids they MUST serve. Charters don’t have to serve anyone.


Cute. Of course, the reason why so few kids attend these schools is because families have abandoned them en masse for charters.


Yes and that is what people are mad about. Save the system that must educate everyone (who comes) and f*** those kids and families who choose to opt out of that system. If they think they'll get a worse education in the neighborhood school, that's the families fault for not moving to a better neighborhood.


If parents trusted DCPS to prepare their children for the future, they would send their kids there. It's as simple as that.

Take a look at the best middle school list in DC: https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia

7/10 in the top ten are charters, and and 14/20 of the top 20. basis, latin, DC prep, Friendship PCS,

But, the list for elementary (10/10 DCPS) and for high school are mostly DCPS (6/10 DCPS). So, these families come back when they assess (corrrectly!) that the schools will work for their kids.

Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 11:42     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


Again kids they MUST serve. Charters don’t have to serve anyone.


Cute. Of course, the reason why so few kids attend these schools is because families have abandoned them en masse for charters.


Yes and that is what people are mad about. Save the system that must educate everyone (who comes) and f*** those kids and families who choose to opt out of that system. If they think they'll get a worse education in the neighborhood school, that's the families fault for not moving to a better neighborhood.


This is like a shoe company being furious with the public for not buying its shoes.
Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 11:16     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


Again kids they MUST serve. Charters don’t have to serve anyone.


Cute. Of course, the reason why so few kids attend these schools is because families have abandoned them en masse for charters.


Yes and that is what people are mad about. Save the system that must educate everyone (who comes) and f*** those kids and families who choose to opt out of that system. If they think they'll get a worse education in the neighborhood school, that's the families fault for not moving to a better neighborhood.
Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 11:06     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


It's very Trump-like to starve an entire school system of money because you're big mad at it while simultaneously building palaces for other schools that don't even have very many students.


Bowser is super reminiscent of Trump


Janeese would be even worse.
Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 10:53     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


It's very Trump-like to starve an entire school system of money because you're big mad at it while simultaneously building palaces for other schools that don't even have very many students.


Bowser is super reminiscent of Trump
Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 10:20     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


Again kids they MUST serve. Charters don’t have to serve anyone.


Cute. Of course, the reason why so few kids attend these schools is because families have abandoned them en masse for charters.
Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 09:44     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


Again kids they MUST serve. Charters don’t have to serve anyone.
Anonymous
Post 05/12/2026 09:18     Subject: Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Charter school parents: We want DC to way over-spend on our facilities too (albeit without the big gratuity to developers). Any money that WTU negotiates for their dues-paying teachers is owed to our teachers too. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS has failed us. We *have to* go to charters because DCPS is violent. We can't take any students that have to or want to leave other charters; DCPS needs to take those. Even as we take away half the kids from DCPS, we don't want to have any part is helping solve the messes that DCPS has to deal with -- that is other kids' problem.

Basically, we want the equality for all the good stuff but avoidance for all the difficult parts.


More like…

DC charter parents: Follow the law which says funding parity.

DCPS: But we have to pay our teachers more, they are in a union. Your teachers aren’t in unions so they shouldn’t make as much. We also get no money for buildings, they come from the DGS fairy. Why do you need money for facilities?


Some of them are in unions though.

They do get a facilities allotment. Explicitly. Have your opinion but please stop spreading false information.


Does that $2000 per kid for charters equal $5 billion for DCPS? Absolutely not! What is DCPS spending on Tubman, $200k per kid? And they will provide maintenance going forward.


I don't now where the $5 billion figure comes from.

However, $2000 x 50,000 students x 20 years = $2 billion, so that's real money.


DC has spent $3.6 billion renovating DCPS schools, and plans to send another $2 billion more.


Ok, we know some of that was ill-spent (the effort to make underenrolled high schools appealing), some inefficiently spent (yay Bowser and her developer friends), some spent to benefit the community in addition to the schools (pools), and some spent initiatives to benefit the community that make no diffetence to the kids (energy efficiency).

We also know that DCPS has to deal with the schools already has, that can't easily reject a difficult property.

Charter schools would surely spend more efficiently can choose properties that make most sense in this era, amd need not worry about investments for the larger community. So presumably they need less money for the same number of students over at the same time.

Is the current allocation fair? I don't know. Maybe not. But I do know that you need more complete information to make a meaningful comparison.


How? They already have buildings. Just like DCPS. Do better.


Some charters have bought or leased buildings in the past 20 years. Others are still expanding or plan to move. None are tied to properties they acquired 50 or 100 years ago.


Oh stop. DCPS is building Taj Mahals. They spent almost $200 million on Duke Ellington, which has maybe 600 students. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a fancy charter school in Washington D.C.


The Duke Ellington renovations were a complete abuse of taxpayers. We all should have been mad -- and we were. For anyone who missed it, here's a good, short article on the fiasco: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/taxpayers-pay-millions-for-over-budgeted-school-renovations/65-474821677

It's still not clear what mismanagement--and possibly graft--last decade has to do with funding schools now.

So have any palaces been built in recent years? I haven't seen it. Banneker is looking great, but was not bonkers like Ellington.

Seems like the process has been tightened up. Maybe somebody here can share details?



Tightened up? DC is spreading the money far and wide (at least for DCPS) and thinks nothing of spending $100 million on a school with 500 kids.

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Tubman -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million
JO Wilson -- $91 million
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million
Jefferson -- $90 million
Burrville -- $85 million
Truesdell -- $80 million
Oyster Adams -- $79 million
Burroughs -- $75 million
Janney -- $70 million
MLK -- $65 million
Dorothy Height -- $63 million
Garfield -- $60.5 million
Anacostia -- $60 million


And some of these schools are tiny! Garfield has 252 students. Anacostia High School only has 250 students. Burrville has 232 students. Burroughs has 331.


It's very Trump-like to starve an entire school system of money because you're big mad at it while simultaneously building palaces for other schools that don't even have very many students.