The Finance Gap: Charter Schools and Their Facilities. Findings from a Nine-Month National Study

This report is the result of a nine-month, national study of nontraditional funding and financing of facilities for charter and other public schools. The qualitative research in this report, based on fourteen study states and the District of Columbia, describes the growing range of private involvement in the acquisition, construction, and renovation of public school facilities and identifies new mechanisms through which both the public and private sectors are becoming involved in facilities financing. This report focuses largely on charter schools, which generally do not have access to the public capital funding streams available to traditional public schools. As a result, they rely heavily on nonprofit and for-profit institutions to obtain facilities funding and financing. In an era of limited public funds for facilities and increased pressure on public schools to produce high achievement, the lessons learned through the charter school experience with nontraditional financing may provide solutions and warnings for all public schools. Appended are: (1) School Facilities Funding--An Annotated Bibliography; (2) State Pressure Filter; (3) Funding and Financing Mechanism Typology; and (4) List of Interviewees. [Report published by the Educational Facilities Financing Center of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.]