The Buckeye Institute Releases New Policy Brief: The Financial Impact of Ohio’s Charter Schools

By Michael T. Hamilton, posted July 6, 2006

For Immediate Release --- July 6, 2006

Contact: Michael Hamilton (614) 224-4422 or (937) 219-5366 cell

The Buckeye Institute Releases New Policy Brief: The Financial Impact of Ohio’s Charter Schools

COLUMBUS, Ohio. --- Today the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions released a new policy brief entitled The Financial Impact of Ohio’s Charter Schools.

This brief fiscal analysis of charter schools shows that, because of the nature of Ohio’s school funding system, charter schools are actually creating increased per pupil revenues for the urban areas they are most likely to be located in.  Also, the fiscal data shows that charter schools, on average, operate at a lower cost than their urban counterparts, thus relieving stress on the state budget.

As the number of students leaving traditional public schools keeps increasing, so do the per pupil revenues of those schools, in each of the Big Eight urban school districts. Also, comparing the operating costs of charter schools to those of traditional public schools, charter schools cost an average of about $1,500 less per pupil to operate.

“Charter schools in Ohio are not only creating academic success stories in our urban areas, they are doing so with positive financial impacts on both the local school districts and the state budget,” said Matthew Carr, Education Policy Director at the Buckeye Institute and the report’s author.

View the policy brief HERE, or access it through our website at www.buckeyeinstitute.org.

Please call me with any questions at (614) 224-4422, or contact me via email at mhamilton@buckeyeinstitute.org.  Hard copies of the report are available upon request.

#####

Michael Hamilton is Communications Manager at the Buckeye Institute and a student at Hillsdale College.