Who will put these charter school lies to rest?

Florida’s charter schools receive far less funding for facilities than their district-run counterparts. That funding has eroded over time, and has now reached a “desperate point.”

PolitiFact Florida recently underscored this truth with an analysis that found that after the latest round of facilities funding cuts, charter schools now receive about $200 per student, compared to the $1,300 per student districts receive for capital outlay.

And yet, days later, PolitiFact’s parent newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times, published a column by former state Sen. Paula Dockery, who revived a talking point that fact checkers had discredited. Despite a lack of accountability, she argued, lawmakers were looking to shower charter schools with “more money and more autonomy.”

This year there are several bills — along with budget recommendations — that benefit charter schools at the expense of our traditional public schools.

To start, the House proposes capital funding of $90 million for charter schools and only $50 million for the rest of Florida’s traditional public schools. The Senate — at least for now — recommends the same $50 million for our traditional schools but zero for charters.

Her point, oft-repeated in the current political debate, is that charter schools are being lavished with extra money at the expense of districts. But this argument ignores more than $2 billion in local property tax revenue and hundreds of millions more that school districts receive in impact fees and discretionary sales taxes. It’s part of a myth that has been allowed to flourish: That there is a systemic financial assault on traditional public schools, from which charters somehow benefit.

How does that square with reality?

• The $90 million would restore charter school facilities funding roughly to 2013 levels. Charters have grown since then, so the money would be spread among some 30 more schools and 40,000 more students.
• Legislation promoting charter school expansion was introduced in each of the past three legislative sessions. In the first two, it didn’t pass.
• This year, anything that’s likely to pass will fall short of charter advocates’ ambitions. A proposed constitutional amendment decried by the Times and others is dead. The idea that charters would wind up with “more funding,” as Dockery asserts, is far from certain.

Meanwhile, legislation is advancing that would bar “private enrichment” from charter school facilities, give school boards clearer authority to reject charter applications from people who aren’t qualified to run schools, and explicitly prevent charters from pushing out students with low academic achievement.

A cynic might wonder if the drumbeat by some groups against charter school construction funding is intended to promote the politically charged assertion the Florida Education Association and its allies have rallied around for years, about a legislative war on district schools.

It’s a compelling narrative, but the people promoting it need to show their work. They haven’t. And they keep getting away with it.