I am think about expenses like: Public Relations, Consultants, Curriculum, and Executive Salary.

You wrote another article that mentioned how charter schools can hide the money that is being spent.

http://gothamschools.org/2009/12/04/irs-form-990s-and-charter-school-compensation/

Overall, these schools tend to be part of larger CMO chains, and they mostly appear to save the difference from year to year – in some cases, because they are looking to save money for a building. This is the case with many of the Achievement First schools and the Icahn schools.

Other cases are less clear – and many were not the same from year to year. For instance, in District 1, there were two co-located charters. Girls Prep spent more than it raised in philanthropy per pupil both years. Manhattan spent more in 2007-2008 and less in 2008-2009 – probably because it raised 5x as much money in 2008-2009 as it did in 2007-2008.

In terms of charters spending more money on admin, etc – I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at there. I looked at TOTAL expenditures per pupil – I didn’t break it down to see the percentage of operating expenses devoted to teachers versus administration. That’s more than enough for another post – and I’m working on it!

Hope this helps!

Kim,

Given the other, related work you have done researching and reporting on how much charter schools take in calculated as per pupil revenue, how do we explain the difference between the funding charters take in and the money spent on students?

For example, I recall pouring over the speedsheets you did comparing per pupil philanthropy spending to examine the charters in my district (that ranged from roughly $300/student to over $3000/student in private funds).

Before I look at this wonderful new research you just published I wanted to correct my lens- if charters take in more mony per pupil (which seems to be the case on average as well as speciifically in the charters co located in my district), then what can we surmise about charter spending?

Are the CMOs operating a sort of funding arbitrage by taking in slightly more than they spend on students?

Are charters spending more money on administration, p.r., lobbying, marketing, equipment, transportation, or some other non educational type of expenditures?

I do apologize for asking before looking at the reports first myself, but I hoped you could correct my assumptions and lens before I dove in on a possible wild goose chase.