Andre Agassi, tennis great, does good and does well. Agassi operates an award winning charter school in a poor section of Las Vegas and believes in the power of the charter school concept. Since privately owned schools lack the public bond funding mechanism available to public schools, school facilities tend to be a limiting factor for proposed charter schools.

To help fill that void, Agassi and Canyon Capital Realty Advisors teamed to create the $750M Canyon-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund. Low income urban areas will have access to the fund for new construction or remodeling projects.

Finding a place to put a school is typically the hardest and most expensive hurdle charter startups face.

“It is very prohibitive for many charters that have great programs,” said Vielka McFarlane, founder of Celerity Educational Group, which operates four charters in low-income areas of Los Angeles and is opening three new ones in the fall. “It’s the biggest challenge.”

So if you’re involved with school construction, here’s another way projects may trickle in.

20 years ago, I ran a company Privatization Services, Inc. that focused on privately building and owning public school facilities (not operating them). We could deliver fantastic cost savings, but couldn’t get past the political inertia to get change initiated. In these more fiscally challenging times, that privatization concept deserves dusting off as well. I doubt I have the passion to jump back on that horse, but hope someone does. It’s a strong idea for these times.