The U.S. Department of Education has announced a new grant program that will further enhance the school choice options under No Child Left Behind by helping states with their charter school facilities costs.

"It is important to empower parents with educational options, be they public schools, charter schools, cyber schools or homeschooling," said Secretary of Education Rod Paige. "Supporting charter schools is a wise investment, and I encourage states to take advantage of these federal funds to create or expand their charter school facilities programs. This is an historic opportunity for states to tap into federal funds for this important purpose and it would be a shame for them not to seize it."

Recently announced in the Federal Register, the State Charter School Facilities Incentive Grants Program competition is designed to encourage states to develop and expand per-pupil facilities aid programs and to share in the costs related to the management and operation of charter schools.

A per-pupil facilities aid program is one in which a state makes payments to charter schools to provide them with financing that must include or be used only for the funding of facilities. The payments are based on a formula that takes into account the number of pupils in the charter school. The new program will provide grants to eligible states to help them establish or enhance and administer per-pupil facilities aid programs for charter schools.

"Research shows that finding and affording decent facilities is a major challenge for charter schools," Paige said. "These new grants will ensure that charter schools are on sound footing."

Some states already have per-pupil facilities aid programs in place. For a state to be eligible to receive a grant, its program must be specified in state law and provide annual matching funds on a per-pupil basis for charter school facilities. States with existing programs are eligible to receive a grant only if they increase the funding level of per- pupil facilities aid programs for charter schools.

Applications for the State Charter School Facilities Incentive Grants Program will be available March 12. July 1 is the deadline for submitting the applications to the department. The department expects to award five, five-year grants, averaging about $3.7 million per grant.

To access the Federal Register notice about this new grant program, visit http://www.ed.gov/legislation/
FedRegister/announcements/2004-1/022304a.html.

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