By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS - Millennium Community School, a 670-pupil charter school in Columbus, would gain $100,000 a year by a proposal to shift additional state dollars to charter schools.

Dayton city schools, with about 19,000 students, would lose about $860,000.

Proposed changes to Ohio laws regarding charter schools would shift at least $9 million in taxpayer dollars to charter schools each year.

Charter schools say they are state-funded schools that still don't receive enough money through the Department of Education. Traditional districts say they can't afford to lose yet more money to the publicly funded, privately run schools.

The funding, meant to close the gap between rich and poor districts, is called parity aid.

"If you're talking about equality, why would one public school student be eligible for funding to improve their education and another public school student not be allowed to receive that same type of funding?" asked Rep. Jon Husted, a Dayton-area Republican who pushed the proposal in the House.

Overall, the House budget would provide $334 million in parity aid to school districts next year, a 59 percent increase over this year. Husted said the $9 million is only a small fraction - about 2.6 percent - of that increase.

The future of the proposal, which was approved as part of the House version of Ohio's $48.5 billion budget, is unclear. Senate Republicans told charter school advocates two weeks ago they have concerns about moving more money out of traditional districts.

The Senate plans to vote on its version of the budget next month.

The state is expected to provide about $200 million to the charter schools this year, or about 2 percent of Ohio's annual school budget. Ohio has about 34,000 charter school students.

Education groups and teachers unions oppose the proposal, saying charter schools are taking too much money already from traditional districts and aren't performing academically.