How Jasper County could lead SC charter school funding change
In this op-ed, originally published in The Post and Courier, I discuss the potential for groundbreaking statewide public charter school funding reform that hinges on a decision resting with the Jasper County Council. They are currently considering giving some local funding to some of their charter schools, which could serve as an important test case for broader reform.
Groundbreaking legislation that could have been the first domino to fall in bringing about meaningful public charter school funding reform in South Carolina has been vetoed by Gov. Henry McMaster because of constitutional problems. The bill would have authorized Jasper County, but only Jasper County, to allocate whatever county funding it deemed appropriate to support a few of its local public charter schools.
You’re reading that correctly: local property tax revenue to support public charter schools.
However, all is not lost.
In closing the door on this bill, the governor opened another with his veto message, stating that “this bill appears largely redundant of authority the County Council may already exercise under existing law.”
In other words, the governor wrote, Jasper County already has the broad authority to allocate funding, and the council may be able to allocate local funds to its charter schools without the need for separate state authorization.
From the outset, we must be abundantly clear on some main points: Charter schools are public schools. They cannot charge tuition and they are held to the same academic standards as traditional public schools and also participate in the state accountability system (i.e., the school report card system). The main difference between charter schools and traditional public schools is that charter schools are allowed more regulatory flexibility to try new and innovative instructional models, such as smaller class sizes and experiential learning.
However, despite being public schools, charter schools do not receive funding for transportation or facilities, and charter schools under statewide authorizers are not automatically allocated local tax dollars. This means charter schools are often forced to do more with less, taking funds that could otherwise be spent on instruction to cover the funding gap and capital expenditures. It forces charter schools to operate more as a business than a school — prioritizing the areas that generate the most return-on-investment (e.g. instruction and staff retention) and making do with the remainder, such as facilities or technology upgrades.
According to the education funding dashboard provided by the South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office, in 2023-24, the average charter school received $13,248 per pupil and spent nearly all of it, while the average traditional public school received $19,218 per pupil but only spent $17,711.
If Jasper County Council were to authorize the transfer of local funds to the local charter schools — and council members seemed interested in the idea during their April 6 meeting — it would be an important opportunity to see how these funds would improve the schools. Perhaps the schools would choose to invest more in instruction and improve student outcomes, or they could decide to increase teacher salaries and benefits to improve teacher recruitment and retention. The possibilities are endless, and it will serve as a valuable case study for policymakers looking for new and improved ways to better our charter schools.
This is not hypothetical: In January, Senate Education Chairman Greg Hembree introduced S.774; the bill would essentially equalize traditional public school and public charter school funding by reducing state funding to traditional public schools by the amount of local funding they receive and providing that amount to the public charter schools in that district. Although Sen. Hembree’s bill didn’t make it to the governor’s desk this year, that may be for the best. What we learn from Jasper County’s pending charter school funding efforts can be used to inform Sen. Hembree’s statewide funding legislation next session.
In Jasper County, students frequently bounce between traditional public and charter schools year to year, so improving one sector necessitates improving the other to preserve the quality of public education options. Jasper County is already well underway in rebuilding its traditional public education system and could bring its charter schools along for the ride with funding reform. The Jasper County Council has an opportunity to lead the state in revolutionizing charter school funding, and we are eager to see how it chooses to proceed.
