Nestled between a taco shop, a gas station and a church lies the Gilbert campus of Leading Edge Academy. A former Albertsons grocery store on the strip mall is what the small public school calls home.

The Arizona Department of Education will use a federal grant to support new and expanding charter schools.

The students of Phoenix Collegiate Academy are used to high expectations. “Our students come to school at 7:30. They’re late if they’re there at 7:31,” said Rachel Bennett Yanof, the charter school’s executive director.

Within days of the new fiscal year’s commencement on July 1, the Arizona Department of Revenue announced that Arizona businesses had claimed more than $51 million in tax credits for their donations to School Tuition Organizations. The state had reached the legal cap on the tax credits in lightning-fast fashion.

The Arizona Supreme Court ended the nearly six-year bid by charter schools today to get funding for their students on a par with students from traditional public schools.

Several district-sponsored charter schools were in a panic about the possibility that because lawmakers omitted a line in the state budget, they could be on the hook to repay the state millions of dollars of funding from previous years.

When lawmakers approved the state budget in March, they accidentally left out one key part. Because of the omission, several longstanding district-sponsored charter schools – public schools that have reorganized as charter schools to capture more state funding – will be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in back payments.

The Department of Education will ask the attorney general this week to issue a formal opinion on cuts to funds that support smaller schools.

Cuts to one component of charter schools’ funding are higher than what lawmakers had assumed when they phased out additional support for small schools, the Arizona Education Department announced today.

Legislation implementing Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's plan to use state cash to back loans taken out by charter schools is still being polished, despite his budget including $24 million for the plan, he said Monday.