Last week, we covered the mechanics of the charter school tuition calculation, which is based on school district expenditures per student (click here for a refresher on the regular education charter school tuition rate and click here for a refresher on the special education charter school tuition rate).
Because charter school tuition rates are based on school district expenditures, it means that charter schools receive a different tuition rate from each sending school district. As a result, when a charter school—or cyber charter school—educates students from multiple school districts, they get multiple tuition rates to provide the same instruction.
This is demonstrated most effectively when viewing cyber charter schools, which pull students from hundreds of school districts. For example, one cyber charter school, which educates students from more than 475 school districts, gets a regular education tuition rate of just about $7,000 per student from one school district and a high of more than $18,000 per student from another. The average regular education tuition rate received by the cyber charter school is about $10,500 per student.
Click on the image link below to view our interactive map illustrating the regular education charter school tuition rate paid by each school district. The map also shows the lowest regular education tuition rate received by each charter school, the highest regular education tuition rate received by each charter school and the average regular education tuition rate received by each charter school for 2015-16. You can filter by school district to view both the school district data and the data of the charter schools that resident students attended during the 2015-16 school year. You can also filter by charter school to view the charter school and each resident school district where students enrolled the charter school reside during the 2015-16 school year.