6c6f9896_nce_for_Public_Charter_Schools__Charter_Law_Description
[State] Tennessee [Score] 8 [Charter Law Description] 
For charter schools authorized by local school boards and the achievement school district, Tennessee law requires a local board of education to allocate to a charter school an amount equal to the per-student state and local funds received by the district and all appropriate allocations under federal law or regulation, including, but not limited to, Title I and Elementary and Secondary Education Act funds. The law requires the state department of education to promulgate rules and regulations that provide for the determination of the allocation of state and local funds. At a minimum, the law specifies that the rules must provide that: allocations shall be based on 100 percent of state and local funds received by the district, including current funds allocated for capital outlay purposes, excluding the proceeds of debt obligations and associated debt service; student enrollments used in allocations shall be for the same period used in allocating state funds to the district under the basic education program; and allocations to the charter school may not be reduced by the LEA for administrative, indirect, or any other category of cost or charge except as specifically provided in a charter agreement. Funding for charter schools authorized by the state board shall be in accordance with the above provisions, except that the LEA in which the charter school operates shall pay to the department 100 percent of the per-student share of local funding and 100 percent of any federal funding in the custody of the LEA that is due to the charter school. The department shall withhold from the LEA 100 percent of the per-student share of state funding that is due to the charter school as well as 100 percent of all federal funding in the custody of the department that is due to the charter school. The department shall then allocate and disburse 100 percent of these funds to the charter school in accordance with procedures developed by the department. In a recent national study of charter school funding (University of Arkansas, Charter School Funding: Inequity Expands, 2014), Tennessee charter schools were receiving on average $9,087 per pupil in public funds, while traditional public schools would have received $10,583 for those students. As a result, the state’s charter schools were receiving $1,496 per pupil—or 16.5 percent—less than what the traditional public schools would have received for those students. This figure includes all sources of funding, and analysis reveals significant inequities for both operational and capital funding (see Component #19 for information on capital issues).
18. Equitable Operational Funding and Equal Access to All State and Federal Categorical Funding | National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
Charter Law Description