| Send to Printer | << Back to Article |
| Local |
|
D.C. public schools losing students to charter schools
)
(Examiner file photo)
Hundreds of D.C. public school students are said to have migrated to charter schools, such as the one pictured above, which means the loss of federal education dollars for those remaining in the public system. D.C. public schools this year continued a troubling trend of losing hundreds of students to charter schools, meaning the loss of federal education dollars for those remaining in the public system, according to schools officials. As of Monday, the tally of public school students is 49,662, according to spokeswoman Mafara Hobson. The number of students is more than 2,400 below last year’s 52,079 level. Hobson said in an e-mail to The Examiner that there have been 3,000 fewer students annually for some time, due at least partly to soaring public charter school registration. The enrollment figure does not bode well for how the District will fare in receiving federal dollars, and it poses problems in that the schools are staffed for close to 52,000 students, officials said. The final enrollment tally will come in about a month, after the State Superintendent’s Office conducts a thorough audit of the D.C. student population. From there, the official count will be used to determine funding for the rest of the school year through a per-pupil spending formula. John Stokes, spokesman for the State Superintendent’s Office, said that last year, the per-pupil amount was $8,322, a 4 percent increase over the prior year’s allocation — about the same as the increase in inflation last year. If the per-pupil amounts followed recent trends, D.C. Schools could expect to receive about $430 million for the 2007-08 school year. Charter schools, whose enrollment has been growing nearly as much as D.C. public schools’ has been shrinking, also receive federal funding through the same per-pupil formula. These schools also reap a separate sum for facilities, however. Charter School Board spokeswoman Nona Richardson said early predictions show that the charters would have 22,258 students — up 2,500 from last year’s enrollment. Final counts also won’t be released until December. |
