County board supports State's efforts to lift charter-school cap | Eastern North Carolina Now

    At tonight's regularly scheduled monthly meeting, the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners took a bipartisan stand in favor of a GOP-backed bill currently under consideration by the North Carolina General Assembly, Senate Bill 8, which would lift the 100-school cap on charter schools and allow charters more access to public-funding streams and oversight outside of the N.C. State Board of Education.

    In a five-to-two vote, with Democrat Commissioner Robert Cayton crossing the isle, the board approved Republican Commissioner Stan Deatherage's motion to send a resolution of county support of Senate Bill 8 to the N.C. General Assembly.

Beaufort County Commissioner Stan Deatherage presenting his resolution of support of Senate Bill 8 to the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners at tonight's meeting in Washington.     photo by Brandia Deatherage

    Deatherage introduced the resolution in the name of "free will" and free-market capitalism, as charter schools are opened and attended by choice. Currently, North Carolina limits the number of allowed charter schools statewide to 100.

    "By lifting that cap, everybody will have that choice, in both rural and urban areas" said Deatherage.

    Introducing the free market to public education would be a win-win for both children and taxpayers, Deatherage explained, in that children could attend a charter school to which they were best suited and those schools could bid on aged-out public-school facilities that would normally revert to the county and be sold "for nothing on the open market."

    "Market forces are going to determine not only how our children are educated, but how our school buildings are used," said Deatherage.

    On its Web site, the North Carolina Democratic Party wrote that "Senate Bill 8 threatens the quality of public education in North Carolina," by 'siphoning' money from the public-school system.

    On the other side of the coin, the N.C. Alliance for Public Charter Schools' Web site calls out this "myth," explaining that "charter schools are public schools, paying the same teachers and educating the same children with the same taxpayer dollars. The difference is that charters provide parents with a choice on how their taxpayer dollars are spent - they can choose to spend them to educate their child in a district, or choose to send their child elsewhere."

    Breaking away from the Democrat-party line on charter schools, Cayton voted in favor of supporting Senate Bill 8 in the name of educational "innovation." He said that charter schools have the ability to implement, in months, new learning methods that would take years to pass through the State Board of Education and other accountability mechanisms.

    Before voting, however, Cayton gave lip service to two worries he has about the notion of charter schools: That they will circumvent the racial criteria imposed upon the public-school system instituted by the '64-'65 Civil Rights Act and that the county might be responsible for a portion of the capital needs of charter schools.

    Senate Bill 8 does, in fact, remove the requirement of district racial quotas, despite the State Board of Education's requirement that a charter school's population reflect the racial and ethnic composition. According to the N.C. Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the removal of said requirement was necessary due to the contradictory nature of another State Board of Education requirement that charter schools admit students based upon a random lottery, "which cannot specify for a particular racial or ethnic group."

    According to the N.C. Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Senate Bill 8 does, in fact, also require local school districts to pay a portion of the capital needs of charter schools. The Alliance believes that this arrangement is justifiable, since charter schools, as public schools, are entitled to public funds.

    "SB 8 just attempts to reverse the 2010 provisions to return the sharing of local dollars on a fair and equitable basis among all public schools in a district," reads the N.C. Alliance for Public Charter Schools' Web site.

    The third reading of Senate Bill 8 passed the N.C. Senate on Feb. 24. It was, then, sent to the N.C. House of Representatives, where a diluted version cleared the House Committee on Education on Mar. 15. The bill is expected to go to the House Finance Committee and then to the House floor for a final vote. If the bill passes the House, state lawmakers would have to reconcile the House and Senate versions, and that could mean more changes.

Resolution in Support of the North Carolina Senate Bill 8 which Authorizes Lifting the Cap on Charter Schools

    Whereas, the largest expense of the taxpaying citizens in North Carolina is Public Education, and,

    Whereas, the Department of Public Education in North Carolina has created a product that is diminished in its relative effectiveness to educate our children comparable to national and global competitive challenges, and,

    Whereas, the taxpaying parents of North Carolina's school age children deserve a real choice in their children's primary and secondary education opportunities, and,

    Whereas, the free will option of choice is the foundation of any free-market solution, and this real world solution should be considered as the viable alternative to the alternating whim of the central planners within the Department of Public Instruction, therefore,

    Let it be resolved, that the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners do hereby resolve that they are in full support of the North Carolina Senate's SB 8 lifting the cap on Charter Schools, so that greater choice will be allocated to the parents of school age children, and we further request that the North Carolina House of Representatives work to also achieve similar success to provide greater choice as well.

    Written by Beaufort County Commissioner Stan Deatherage and submitted to the Beaufort County Board of County Commissioners, North Carolina, for passage on April 4, 2011. Once passed, this resolution will be sent to both chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly, and our local representatives, who represent us in each.
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