Charter Competition and District Finances: Evidence From California

• In Event: 54.052 - School Choice Implementation: Finance, Access, and Leadership

Abstract

Charter schools enroll a growing share of public school students. This has led to concerns about the financial implications of charter schools for traditional public schools (TPSs), which still enroll a large majority of students. Using detailed expenditure data for school districts in California, I exploit variation in charter school enrollment across time and between districts to evaluate how district spending and overall financial health change as charter schools expand, controlling for student characteristics and district and year fixed effects. Results suggest that larger charter enrollment shares are associated with lower levels of per-pupil spending and reduced fiscal health in TPSs. However, these relationships in some cases exhibit significant nonlinearities and appear to be somewhat smaller in magnitude than in other states. I find no evidence of substantial changes in the distribution of spending in TPSs. Differences between these results and those from similar analyses in other states may be explicable in terms of California’s economic and policy context, providing lessons for policymakers.

Author

• Paul Bruno, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign