Washington, D.C.-This week, the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Subcommittee approved a Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) spending bill that was approved by the full committee on Thursday. This bill includes $445M in funding for the Charter Schools Program (CSP), an increase of $45M over FY18 but just short of the $450M the House Labor-HHS bill recommended.
National Alliance President and CEO Nina Rees released the following statement in response to the bill:
“We are grateful to Subcommittee Chairman Blunt, Ranking Member Murray, and members of the committee for their continued commitment to funding CSP, which will allow more students and families to access a high-quality public education. While this funding increase is shy of the $500M we had hoped for, we are grateful for the increase and will work closely with Congress to boost funding for this program this year and in years to come.”
About Public Charter Schools
Public charter schools are independent, public, and tuition-free schools that are given the freedom to be more innovative while being held accountable for advancing student achievement. Since 2010, many research studies have found that students in charter schools do better in school than their traditional school peers. For example, one study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found that charter schools do a better job teaching low income students, minority students, and students who are still learning English than traditional schools. Separate studies by the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Mathematica Policy Research have found that charter school students are more likely to graduate from high school, go on to college, stay in college and have higher earnings in early adulthood.
About the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is the leading national nonprofit organization committed to advancing the public charter school movement. Our mission is to lead public education to unprecedented levels of academic achievement by fostering a strong charter sector. For more information, please visit www.publiccharters.org.
