New Charter Applicants Mostly In Larger Counties | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Barry Smith, who is an associate editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

Population centers have better access to students, facilities

    RALEIGH  -  The bulk of the 62 charter school applicants hoping to open their doors in the fall of 2015 will continue to be in the more metropolitan areas of North Carolina, concentrated in the Charlotte, Piedmont Triad, and Research Triangle sections of the state.

    Even so, the applications approved for further study show increased interest in areas of the state with few school choice options, including rural counties and some inner cities.

    Eddie Goodall, a former Republican state senator from Union County who now is executive director of the N.C. Public Charter Schools Association, said charter schools tend to concentrate in urban areas because the finances work.

    "Much like a business, the charter applicants have to have a supply of students to make their business plan work," Goodall said. "With density comes customers."

    It's more difficult to make a charter school succeed in a sparsely populated rural area, Goodall said.

    Joel Medley, director of the state Office of Charter Schools, agrees.

    "The rationale is simple," Medley said. "Students are there, and the facilities are there."

    Charter school organizers are also more apt to find a building suitable for housing a school in urban areas, Medley said.

    Bill Cobey, who chairs the State Board of Education, also noted that in rural areas, "you don't have the number of students, you have more transportation issues normally."

    Cobey added that it's easier to find leadership  -  both at the board of directors level and at the staff level  -  in more populated areas.

    Seventeen of the 2015 applicants come from schools that plan to locate in the state's largest county  -  Mecklenburg. Two Research Triangle counties, Wake and Durham, would get six new charter schools apiece. An additional five applicants are in Guilford County in the Piedmont Triad.

    Four charter school applicants hail from Pitt County, with three applicants each in Cabarrus, Iredell, and Union counties. Buncombe, Forsyth, and Gaston counties each produced two applicants. Applications from one school came from Chatham, Cumberland, Davidson, Franklin, Haywood, Henderson, Vance, Warren, and Wilson counties.

    Two of the 62 applicants hope to open virtual charter schools, one based in Durham County and another based in Cabarrus County.

    Charter schools receive public funding but operate differently than traditional district schools. Charter schools typically receive the district's per-pupil spending allotment for each student. But charter schools generally report to their own board of directors instead of a locally elected school board. And charters usually operate with fewer restrictions and regulations than traditional public schools.

    Medley said there were a number of first-time applicants in rural areas where there are no charter schools.

    Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, which operates the N.C. Public Charter School Accelerator Program, is working to get some of those charter schools placed in rural counties.

    Kwan Graham, who co-directs the accelerator program, is working on applications for two schools in Pitt County and one in Warren County. PEFNC also is proposing new schools for Durham and southeast Raleigh.

    "The goal of the N.C. Charter Schools Accelerator Program is to help facilitate the opening of high quality charter schools in some of our most underserved communities, specifically communities in which there has been a record of low academic achievement," said Christopher Gergen, who has experience in charter school administration in other areas and has been retained by the accelerator program.

    "North Carolina is really at this interesting point of development," Gergen said. "With the charter cap lifted two years ago, it really opened opportunities for charter schools to be located in underserved areas."

    Graham noted that even with 26 charter schools approved to open this fall, 44 counties in North Carolina have no charter school.

    "We know that choice is important," Graham said. "Parents having options is very important to students in their academic success."

    Graham also noted that the initiation of a $500 application fee this year didn't prevent those schools from applying.

    Goodall suggested that the state should do more to encourage the creation of new charter schools. "Why doesn't the State Board of Education tell people how to start charter schools?" Goodall asked.

    Cobey said the board didn't have the money to market charter schools.

    Medley said marketing charter schools should be the role of the charter school advocacy organizations.

    "Should we be out there advertising to submit applications, or should we be monitoring the schools that we have in place?" Medley asked. "We need to make sure that it's quality and not quantity that matters."

    Gergen agreed with Medley.

    "I don't think that's the role of the state," Gergen said. "We don't want to just do mass marketing campaigns, because at the end of the day, starting a high quality school is really hard work. It's definitely not for the faint of heart."