Charter School Spending and Saving in California
Sherrie Reed, education PhD candidate and director of research at New Tech Network, won Best Paper by a junior researcher at the International Conference on School Choice in January 2015 for “Charter School Spending and Saving in California.”
Co-written by associate professor of education Heather Rose, the paper examines how charter schools allocate spending to better understand their financial viability and sustainability. Using nine years of finance data from California, he authors find charter schools spend less on instruction and pupil support services than traditional public schools. The lower spending on instruction and pupil support is offset not by administrative costs, but by higher spending on operations, consultant services and a greater rate of saving. Download a draft of the full paper.