The U.S. Department of Education today announced five grantees for the Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Grant program. Together, these grantees will serve approximately 48,000 students in 120 charter schools in California, Delaware, Texas, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

Under this program, funds are provided on a competitive basis to public and nonprofit entities, and consortia of those entities, to leverage other funds and help charter schools obtain school facilities through such means as purchase, lease and donation. Grantees may also use grants to leverage funds to help charter schools construct and renovate school facilities.

Despite the popularity of charter schools with parents, teachers and the public, these distinctive public schools face barriers. A high percentage of new charter schools point out that inadequate facilities have impeded the implementation of their charters. Unlike traditional local education agencies, charter schools generally lack the ability to issue general obligation bonds backed by property taxes, and they are often considered to be credit risks by lending institutions.

"Charter schools must be able to grow and expand wherever the demand is greatest," said U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. "We must not allow a lack of space to become a barrier to parents and children stuck on long waiting lists. These grants will help communities open up new spaces to charter schools so that charter schools can open their doors to new students."

To help leverage funds for charter school facilities, grant recipients may, among other things, guarantee and insure debt to finance charter school facilities; guarantee and insure leases for personal and real property; facilitate a charter school's facilities financing by identifying potential lending sources; encourage private lending; and establish charter school facility "incubator" housing that new charter schools may use until they can acquire a facility on their own.

These five new grantees will join the nine previous grantees under the program in serving charter schools. President Bush has requested an additional $37 million for the Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities program in Fiscal Year 2006, building on the $124 million that has been appropriated since 2001. This is in addition to the more than $1 billion invested in the Charter Schools Program since the president took office.

The new grantees are:

The Reinvestment Fund
718 Arch Street, Suite 300N
Philadelphia, PA 19106-1591
Project Director: Donald R. Hinkle-Brown
(215) 574-5829
donald.hinklebrown@trfund.com
$10,000,000

California Charter Schools Association
818 W. Seventh Street, Suite 910
Los Angeles, CA 90017-3407
Project Director: George Fatheree
(213) 244-1446
georgef@charterassociation.org
$10,000,000

Illinois Facilities Fund
One North LaSalle Street, Suite 700
Chicago, IL 60602-3902
Project Director: Joe Neri
(312) 596-5104
jneri@iff.org
$8,000,000

Indianapolis Local Improvement Bond Bank
200 East Washington Street, 2421
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Contact Person: Katie Aeschliman
(317) 327-4277
KAESCHLI@Indygov.org
$2,000,000

Texas Public Finance Authority
300 W. 15th Street, Suite 411
P.O. Box 12906
Austin, TX 78711
Project Director: Kim Edwards
(512) 463-5544
kim.edwards@tpfa.state.tx.us
$6,930,768

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