Charters schools' spending varies
Per-pupil spending among Mecklenburg-area charter schools varied widely last year, with a handful reporting that they spent significantly less in local money than Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools forwarded to them.
Total spending ranged from $6,194 at Queens Grant, a Mint Hill school run by a for-profit chain, to $15,157 at Kennedy Charter in south Charlotte, run by the nonprofit Elon Homes, according to 2010-11 state report cards.
The average for CMS was $7,994. The state doesn't calculate spending for individual schools in a district; CMS plans to release its own tallies for 2010-11 when the school board's budget planning begins in January.
Charters - publicly funded schools that don't report to local school boards - are attracting new attention since the state legislature lifted the 100-school limit in hopes of increasing innovation and student success.
The Public School Forum of North Carolina, a Raleigh-based nonprofit research group, does annual studies of school spending but doesn't include charters. Because of the expected surge in new ones, "that's an issue we're going to have to look at," said President Jo Ann Norris.
Some common factors shape per-pupil spending at charters and traditional public schools: Size, grade level, special missions and student need. When CMS did its 2009-10 report, spending