Charter school leaders and some teachers are mounting a fierce campaign against what they say is an unfair and unequal offer from Mayor Muriel Bowser for back pay for work during the pandemic, arguing that the charter sector — which educates roughly half of the city’s kids — is getting significantly less than educators in D.C. Public Schools.

But the debate over what charter school teachers could get has been complicated by a tight budget for the upcoming year, as well as persistent tensions between two sectors that educate the same kids but can operate under very different rules.

As part of her proposed 2024 budget, Bowser offered thousands of charter school teachers the same pay raise that was negotiated in the contract with the Washington Teachers’ Union, which represents educators in DCPS — 12.5% over four years, starting in October. But while that contract also gives DCPS teachers four years worth of retroactive cost-of-living increases for the time they worked under an expired contract, Bowser has offered charter school teachers (most of whom are not unionized) only half that amount.

City officials say that they did the best they could amidst a tight budget that nonetheless made other big investments in public and charter schools, including a 5% increase in per-pupil funding for both sectors.

“We had this very constrained budget environment that caused us to set some goals and see how close we could get,” said Paul Kihn, D.C.’s deputy mayor for education, in an interview with DCist/WAMU. “These are dollars going directly into the pockets of teachers in a backward-looking way. You are paying teachers for work they’ve done, and we wanted to get as close to the negotiated settlement with the WTU, and we got halfway there.”

But that halfway prompted significant concern at a marathon 14-hour public hearing on schools funding last week, where charter leaders and teachers alike told the D.C. Council they felt they were being shortchanged despite doing the same type of work as their DCPS counterparts.

“I never imagined I would be sitting here now feeling that I was treated differently just because of where I chose to teach,” said Keisha Lewis, a teacher at Friendship Public Charter School’s campus in Woodridge. “My colleagues and I, we teach public school children. Our kids have the same tests, they even have the same days off. This budget makes me believe you don’t value the work that I and my colleagues do as much as you see the other teachers that do the same job.”

Some charter leaders also raised concerns with the method by which schools will have to access the money to pay teachers: they’ll have to apply for grants from the Office of the State Superintendent for Education, instead of having the money sent directly to them as part of the per-pupil funding formula. Charter leaders are also worried that the current proposal would limit back pay — and future pay raises — only to teachers, and not other educators like social workers and psychologists. (DCPS includes those positions in its back pay and pay raises.)

Overall, charter school advocates worry that differences in funding between DCPS and charters — especially as they relate to teacher pay — could spur teachers to leave charter schools.

“We’re going to have a slew of challenges and problems in the next year or two years, especially with a funding setting where we’re not going to have the capacity to keep our educators,” said Ariel Johnson, the executive director of the D.C. Charter School Alliance. “People are leaving so rapidly, and that’s not hyperbole. That’s just real.”

In some ways the dispute over the funding again shines a light on the tenous and sometimes tense relationship between the two school sectors in D.C. — charters operate more independently, expanded rapidly over the years, and are sometimes supported by wealthy foundations — while also creating unusual alliances that may allow some type of compromise to be struck.

“I do think that WTU organized, negotiated, protested, and worked to try to get the raise that they got. And there is a benefit from being in a collective bargaining agreement. And so the idea that others might benefit from the actions of the union who are outside of the union is different,” said Councilmember Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3). “One of the advantages, I think, that many in the charter sector see is that they are not unionized, which can be perceived as a competitive advantage by some. And so again, if that’s the case, then there’s a question mark next to whether or not they should benefit from the actions of the union.”

“On the other hand, and I am sympathetic to this, I want to see all of our teachers well-compensated so that they can stay. Teacher retention is a giant issue,” he added.

Data released by the city last month showed that almost a third of D.C. teachers left their school last year, with turnover generally being higher in the charter sector.

Scott Goldstein, the executive director of EmpowerED, which advocates for teachers in both sectors, says that retaining teachers is one of the more critical issues animating the discussion over equitable funding for the two sectors. But he says that there’s a middle ground to be had, especially around expanding the pool of charter school staff who will be eligible for back pay and pay raises moving forward — something Johnson says she also supports.

“I think it’s a real problem that 38% of charter teachers left. We can’t sustain that level of turnover, so we have to do something about pay,” he said. “I think it’s really important to think about the expanded definition of educator. We’re losing too many social workers and psychologists, so we do have to expand the definition and have the same definition for both sectors.”

Goldstein and Frumin also support Bowser’s proposal that charter schools receiving money for teacher back pay publish salary scales for all their staff, information that is not currently publicly available for every school.

Still, Frumin also wants to explore other options, given that the city’s tight budget situation may make finding funding to equalize back pay between teachers in both sectors challenging. Those options could include encouraging charter schools with large cash reserves to use that money to pay their teachers more. But some charter leaders say that option is a non-starter; they say they are required to keep specific cash balances to pay down debt on renovations done to their school buildings.

Johnson says that if the funding inequities remain, she’ll at least be looking for a legal commitment that they won’t recur in future years and that pay raises and back pay received by DCPS are also equally shared with charter schools. During the council’s hearing, one charter school teacher floated another possibility — but one that would likely be a heavy lift for the union-averse charter sector.

“We believe the best path to equitable funding for charter schools is to collectively bargain just like DCPS teachers,” said Kelley Ukhun, a teacher at Mundo Verde, one of the few charter schools that is unionized. “Charter teachers deserve to be paid fairly like our counterparts at DCPS while having some guarantees that the money received by charters will be used for its intended purposes.”

In an interview with DCist/WAMU, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who leads oversight of the city’s schools, said he’s looking to find middle ground amidst competing priorities in a tight budget year.

“I recognize that there are a lot of folks who dislike charters and would like to screw them at any opportunity, but the fact is that nearly half our kids go to charter schools, charter schools are an important part of our education system, and they need to be treated fairly,” he said. “The mayor has presented us with an austere budget and it would be difficult to make the charters 100% whole, but treating them unfairly engenders distrust and that’s not a good thing going forward. The best I can say at this point is I am looking to find a solution.”