Correct. I'm not sure I have a huge problem with non-religious schools, but on the other hand I'm not really sure to whom they're accountable or how they spend that money. I am not completely sold.
It's been messy to watch this play out in Portland, the quality of education delivered is not consistent and each charter school (or chain) is on its own to reinvent the wheel (and waste resources doing so) on common infrastructure many districts would otherwise share.
They were non-existent.
The reality, in NJ at least, is that a school’s budget will balloon to the maximum size legally allowed, and expand from there forever. On occasions when stupid BOE’s back themselves into a corner, they rook the residents into a referendum to get a zillion dollar bond.
The common theme in public schools is: mandatory funding via taxation, and no accountability at all.
The cost to do this for an individual school is much greater than spreading these primarily fixed over many schools.
I have looked at our budgets, IT is almost a rounding error out of the $25 million/year.
Most of the “synergy” of combining schools is supposed to come out of reduced administrative personnel.
Except that never happen. Quite the opposite - administration swells and the combined regional district ends up costing more.