Colorado Newsline: Colorado charter schools have expanded significantly in the past decade, with 16% of students now attending charter schools, yet current state laws governing their operations are woefully inadequate to ensure full transparency and accountability for the public funding of charter schools. Charter schools utilize taxpayer dollars and, at the same time, charter schools allow private interests to invest in their growth and development.

Charter schools have two primary funding sources: one from the taxpayers and the other from investments often executed with little public knowledge of intent or interest. Specifically, investments from billionaires, private foundations, and hedge fund managers reap tax advantages when they donate large sums of money to charter schools. After tax codes were changed in the early 2000s, “banks and equity funds that invest(ed) in charter schools in underserved areas took advantage of a very generous tax credit,” HuffPost reported. “According to one analyst, the credit allows them to double the money they invested in seven years.”

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