Equal or Fair? A Study of Revenues and Expenditures in American Charter Schools

A new study finds that charter schools typically get less funding than traditional public schools. And it also reveals that the primary reason charters tend to get less funding is because traditional public schools must offer far more special education, transportation and student support services. Spending on those programs and services -- often not available in charter schools -- accounts for much or all of the difference in funding each receives. This finding is one of several that Professor Gary Miron and his co-author Jessica Urschel make in Equal or Fair? A Study of Revenues and Expenditures in American Charter Schools, released today by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. The study comes amid a growing debate over the question of whether charter schools are inadequately funded compared with traditional public schools. In recent years, numerous charter school advocates have cited the purported funding gap to help explain charter schools' achievement results compared with traditional public schools. Miron and Urshel point out that, compared with traditional public schools, charter schools spend proportionally more on administration -- in the percentage of overall spending that goes to administrative costs, as well as in the salaries they pay administrative personnel. Overall, however, charter schools spend less than traditional public schools: less on instruction, less on student support services and less on teacher salaries and benefits. Equal or Fair? is the most comprehensive study to date on the question. It uses data from the U.S. Department of Education on revenue sources and spending patterns of charter schools and traditional public schools and districts across the nation. It also examines patterns across nine different comparison groups, ranging from traditional public schools to various sub-groups of charter schools. "On first appearance, charter schools receive less revenue per pupil ($9,883) than traditional public schools ($12,863)," Miron and Urschel find. Yet, they add, this direct comparison "may be misleading." States vary considerably in the way they channel funds to charter schools. Moreover, public schools provide -- and receive funds for -- certain services that most charter schools do not provide (or spend far less on) including special education, student support services and transportation and food services. This largely explains the differences in revenues and expenditures for charters compared with traditional schools. "When charter schools and traditional public schools have similar programs and services and when they serve similar students, funding levels should be equal in order to be considered fair," they write. "However, as long as traditional public schools are delivering more programs, serving wider ranges of grades, and enrolling a higher proportion of students with special needs, they will require relatively higher levels of financial support. Under these circumstances, differences or inequality in funding can be seen as reasonable and fair.

Current induced domain wall dynamics in the presence of spin orbit torques

Current induced domain wall (DW) motion in perpendicularly magnetized nanostripes in the presence of spin orbit torques is studied. We show using micromagnetic simulations that the direction of the current induced DW motion and the associated DW velocity depend on the relative values of the field like torque (FLT) and the Slonczewski like torques (SLT). The results are well explained by a collective coordinate model which is used to draw a phase diagram of the DW dynamics as a function of the FLT and the SLT. We show that a large increase in the DW velocity can be reached by a proper tuning of both torques.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

Electric-field control of domain wall nucleation and pinning in a metallic ferromagnet

The electric (E) field control of magnetic properties opens the prospects of an alternative to magnetic field or electric current activation to control magnetization. Multilayers with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) have proven to be particularly sensitive to the influence of an E-field due to the interfacial origin of their anisotropy. In these systems, E-field effects have been recently applied to assist magnetization switching and control domain wall (DW) velocity. Here we report on two new applications of the E-field in a similar material : controlling DW nucleation and stopping DW propagation at the edge of the electrode

Al-Substitution Effects on Physical Properties of the Colossal Magnetoresistance Compouns La0.67ca0.33mno3

We present a detailed study of the polycrystalline perovskite manganites La0.67Ca0.33AlxMn1-xO3 (x = 0, 0.1, 0.15, 0.5) at low temperatures and high magnetic fields, including electrical resistance, magnetization, ac susceptibility. The static magnetic susceptibility was also measured up to 1000 K. All the samples show colossal magnetoresistance behavior and the Curie temperatures decrease with Al doping. The data suggest the presence of correlated magnetic clusters near by the ferromagnetic transition. This appears to be a consequence of the structural and magnetic disorder created by the random distribution of Al atoms.Comment: 13 pages including 5 figure

Research of Gravitation in Flat Minkowski Space

In this paper it is introduced and studied an alternative theory of gravitation in flat Minkowski space. Using an antisymmetric tensor, which is analogous to the tensor of electromagnetic field, a non-linear connection is introduced. It is very convenient for studying the perihelion/periastron shift, deflection of the light rays near the Sun and the frame dragging together with geodetic precession, i.e. effects where angles are involved. Although the corresponding results are obtained in rather different way, they are the same as in the General Relativity. The results about the barycenter of two bodies are also the same as in the General Relativity. Comparing the derived equations of motion for the $n$-body problem with the Einstein-Infeld-Hoffmann equations, it is found that they differ from the EIH equations by Lorentz invariant terms of order $c^{-2}$.Comment: 28 page