In the Public Interest and Parents United for Public Schools analyzed data released in early July by the Small Business Administration (SBA) on Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans awarded to small businesses and nonprofit organizations.

In total, California charter organizations have received at least $240.7 million and as much as $565.6 million in 268 loans benefitting as many as 420 schools.

Other notable findings:

• 43 percent of loans analyzed went to businesses affiliated with Charter Management Organizations (CMOs), which are corporate entities that manage multiple charter schools
• 35 percent of loans analyzed went to independent charter schools
• 65 percent of charter schools that benefited from these loans are affiliated with CMOs

Download a one-page fact sheet or more lengthy backgrounder on these findings.

See below for key explaining data types and footnotes.

[ninja_tables id=”10392″]

Business Name = Name of business per SBA database
Charter or CMO Name = Name of charter organization
Entity = The type of charter-related business receiving the loan. “School” indicates that the loan appears to be for an independent school. “CMO” indicates that the loan appears to be for a Charter Management Organization (CMO) or a school or other business entity affiliated with a charter management organization. “Back Office” indicates that the loan appears to be for some kind of central or back office of a CMO, and not for the schools in that CMO.
County = The county or counties in which the business receiving PPP funds operates schools
CD =  Congressional District
# of charters likely receiving funds in California = Number of authorized charter schools that likely benefited from the PPP loan. For CMOs, in most cases, this field has the total number of schools in the CMO unless we were able to identify that the Business Name matched an entity that manages a subset of charter schools in a larger CMO.

i – Summit also has schools in Washington State. Summit Public Schools WA also received a PPP loan.
ii – This entity is related to the Lewis Center for Education Research, which manages two charter schools but also appears to have other programs, so the loan may be for more than just the charter schools.
iii – This entity provides services to Green Dot Schools in three states (18 schools in California).
iv – This entity has non-charter school operations as well. Information provided by Oakland Unified School District indicates that approximately $300,000 of the loan was for the charter school.
v – We believe the name is a data entry error. The address corresponds to Invictus Academy, the lender is the same as that listed on school records, and the amount of the loan for the school is $193,262 per board documents, matching the range indicated here.
vi – This entity has non-charter school operations as well. The loan is to the parent organization so it is likely only a small percentage of the overall loan went to the charter school.
vii – This entity has non-charter school operations as well.

To request full data set, email: info@inthepublicinterest.org

Data on Education Management Organizations (EMOs), which helped identify $15 million in funds, was provided by Gary Miron, Professor of Evaluation, Measurement, and Research, Western Michigan University.