Professor of school law, Derek Black writes: “School funding formulas are one of the most arcane and obscure elements of public policy one can imagine.” Maybe that’s why most of us lose a sense of the connection of the money to the particulars of what it pays for. When the state cuts school funding—unless our own children lose a teacher, or we see their classes grow over 35 children, or their school loses the counselor or the nurse or the librarian—we aren’t likely to pay attention.
And then there are the totally invisible costs. In a report last summer for In the Public Interest, the political economist Gordon Lafer explains some of these invisible costs a public school system is required provide in order to serve the community and meet the needs of each of the children—things that a charter school or even charter school chain (which…
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