Funding & Costs

Financial Ambiguity 

Due to the varying ways schools are funded it's hard to properly quantify how much charter schools are receiving. Usually, most funding is based on the number of students enrolled in the school and their attendance rates. Outside factors such as grants and philanthropy can greatly affect this on a case-by-case basis. 

Based on the research I've done, charter schools usually receive less money but are more efficient at spending the funding they receive. The more efficient, higher-performing charter schools will usually
spend less. Third-party funding is usually needed to help these charter schools acquire the funding that the state doesn't give. Charters will commonly be higher on administrative costs rather than instruction. This seems counter-intuitive to the idea that charters can spend less on staff due lack of contract obligations. This higher cost is probably due to the for-profit mindset of some charters.

The graph is from this Vox article.