Dive Brief:

• Increasing student enrollment in charter schools is draining traditional public school budgets nationwide, with some districts like Los Angeles, where a reported 100,000 students now attend charters, channeling $500 million annually to the schools. 
• The Associate Press reports that schools in poor urban areas, like Detroit or Philadelphia, have seen enrollment numbers for traditional public schools decline so much — due to low birth rates, suburban flight, and booming charter popularity — that school budgets that were already tight may now be reaching a tipping point. 
• The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools says 2.6 million U.S. students now attend charters.

Dive Insight:

Because much public school funding is dispersed on a per-pupil basis, traditional public schools feel a financial burden when kids leave for charters, since the money follows them. Yet that arrangement varies state to state and district to district. There's no set blanket rule governing how charter funding works. 

Further, there's more to declining enrollment than just charters. In Detroit, for example, public school enrollment has plummeted 70% since 2002 alongside an overall population decline as residents leave the city. States have considered various solutions. Utah is planning to reimagine its funding formula at the end of 2016, with a Charter School Funding Task Force of legislators, State School Board members and other education leaders recommending a mandate that charters and district schools follow identical enrollment procedures to even out funding.

That Task Force found that if Utah charters moved to the system used by districts, they could lose $6 million, but if district schools transitioned to per-student funding, they’d gain an additional $65 million annually from the state.