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With Michigan legislators debating the statutory limit on the number of Public School Academies (PSAs) allowed, the Michigan Chamber Foundation retained Anderson Economic Group to consider carefully the relative costs of educating a child in a public school academy and a traditional public school. To assess the relative costs, AEG did the following:

• Reviewed the laws that govern public schools, including traditional public schools and public school academies, in Michigan;  
• Reviewed the statutes that govern the funding of public schools in Michigan, and trends in school funding that have occurred since the passage of Proposal A in 1994; and
  Completed three different analyses to assess the relative costs of educating a child in a
• PSA and a traditional public school. This was done by first examining the statutes themselves; then examining the foundation allowances of PSAs and the districts in which they are located (the "host districts"); and finally examining the total state and local revenue for PSAs and their host districts.