Many Chicago Charter Schools Run Deficits, Data Shows
By SARAH KARP
Published: August 13, 2010
Even as the Obama administration promotes charter schools as a way to help raise the academic performance of the nation’s students, half of Chicago’s charter schools have been running deficits in recent years, an analysis of financial and budget documents shows, calling into question their financial viability.
José Moré/Chicago News Cooperative
Teachers heading to their classrooms at Perspectives Calumet High School, a charter school on the South Side of Chicago.
Chicago News Cooperative
A nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization providing local coverage of Chicago and the surrounding area for The New York Times.
José Moré/Chicago News Cooperative
Charter teachers may do more than teach. Ryan Beaudoin, an 11th-grade teacher at Perspectives Calumet, painted his room.
On Monday, Chicago Public Schoolsreleased a bare-bones budget that included a cut of about 6 percent in per-pupil financing for charter schools — to $5,771 from $6,117 per pupil for elementary school students and to $7,213 from $7,647 per pupil for high school students. The cuts are a result of shrinking tax revenue and lagging support from the strapped state government. The city’s 71 charter schools, which enrolled 33,000 students last year and expect to enroll another 10,000 in the 2010-11 school year, stand to lose $15 million under the cuts.
It is difficult to compare the cuts with those that are being made at traditional schools because those schools do not receive money on a per-pupil basis, but district officials said they tried to make the amount of cuts comparable to those being made at traditional schools.
As a result, charters will become more dependent on private donors to provide the extras — more counselors, smaller classes, longer school days and up-to-date
After Layoffs, Yonkers Trims Curriculum
By WINNIE HU
Ruby Washington/The New York Times
Gina Garcia teaching a summer school class with 34 students.
Amid a statewide fiscal crisis, Yonkers has laid off 90 teachers, which will force it to increase class sizes.
Inquiry on Harvard Lab Threatens Ripple Effect
By NICHOLAS WADE
Harvard’s slow-motion inquiry about the laboratory of Marc Hauser has cast a shadow over the several different fields in which he and his students published papers.
