The Arkansas Times blog recently posted a legal brief in which Chris Heller argues against a proposed charter school that would serve black boys — oblivious to the perversity of using desegregation as an excuse to block educational opportunity for black children.

Heller faults the proposed charter school (along with an existing charter school, Academics Plus) for failing to pay for transportation. He then makes this claim:

Charter school advocates have made the false claim that charter schools do not receive funding for transportation. In fact, charter schools receive the same amount of transportation funding as traditional school districts. Charter schools, as well as traditional school districts, receive a set amount of money per student known as ‘foundation funding.’ . . . Of this amount, $286.00 was designated as transportation funding. . . . In fact, many school districts, including LRSD, spend more than $286.00 per student on transportation. in 2007-2008, the LRSD spent $623.96 per student on transportation; KIPP Delta College Prep spent $907.83 per student on transportation.

This ignores one very basic fact: Little Rock schools and the KIPP Delta school have much more money per year to work with than just the mere $5,905 that the state provides.

Specifically, in 2007-08, KIPP Delta spent $8,911 per student — $3,000 more per student per year than the state provides. Little Rock School District managed to spend fully $11,168 per student, or nearly twice as much as the state foundation funding.

The Academics Plus charter school — which Heller sneers at for failing to provide transportation — spent a mere $5,985 per student, far less than KIPP or LRSD. By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, if Academics Plus had been given the same funding as Little Rock School District, it would have had an extra $1.97 million in 2007-08 alone. Just going out on a limb: I’d bet that Academics Plus would have little problem providing transportation — and doing quite a few other things for the impoverished children that Heller is so worried about — if they had an extra $1.97 million per year.

If Heller thinks that new charter schools should be providing transportation, he should urge that the state start funding charter schools more equally, rather than handing them thousands of dollars less per student. Indeed, if charter schools are to be expected to provide transportation, they should be given more money than regular public schools, which can do it much more economically. That is, regular public schools serve a circumscribed attendance zone, in which it’s fairly easy to send a bus down the street stopping at every block. Charter schools can serve anyone from anywhere, and it’s much more expensive and time-consuming to send a bus to pick up a handful of students scattered across a metropolitan area.

Indeed, Heller is basically admitting to an unspoken belief that charter schools are incredibly more efficient and competent than the other public schools. After all, Heller expects charter schools to do all the things that LRSD does, but with millions of dollars less to work with. Clearly charter schools couldn’t do this unless they were overwhelmingly more efficient and competent than LRSD.