Wake Seeks Charter-Like Flexibility for District Schools | 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.

Critics say Wake wants to undermine public school choice


    RALEIGH - Some members of the Wake County Board of Education have joined the list of education policymakers hoping to find the same flexibility for traditional public schools that charter schools enjoy, though some school choice supporters are suspicious of the board members' motives.

    Charter schools are public schools, usually governed by an independent board of directors, that are given a bit more flexibility in operating and personnel policies than traditional public schools. The state's first charter school law was enacted in 1996. It capped the number of charter schools that could operate in the state at 100.

    Over the next decade and a half, legislative Republicans and charter school advocates pushed to increase or totally remove the charter school cap. However, Democratic majorities in the General Assembly blocked those efforts.

    When Republicans gained control of both chambers of the General Assembly following the 2010 elections, they enacted a law removing the charter school cap.

    Currently, there are 148 charter schools operating in North Carolina. Last September, the State Board of Education voted to move 11 new charter schools into the planning phase, with plans to open in the 2015-16 school year.

    Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, R-Wake, a school choice supporter, said he's interested in learning more about what the Wake County school board members want to do. "The flexibility the charter schools have on [teacher] certification and paying people is very important," Stam said.

    Terry Stoops, director of research and education studies at the John Locke Foundation, has qualms with the idea, saying it could make it more difficult for parents to distinguish between charter schools and traditional public schools.

    "It would dilute the charter school brand," Stoops said. "It would lead parents to think they're choosing the charter school when in reality they're choosing a school that has the charter school seal of approval."

    Stoops said, however, that he does support giving local school systems more flexibility. They should have more flexibility in hiring decisions, school calendars, and curriculum, Stoops said.

    "I think those are three areas that we should be more than willing to grant to traditional schools," Stoops said. That can be accomplished without calling them charter schools, he added.

    Eddie Goodall, a former state senator who is now executive director of the N.C. Public Charter Schools Association, said he welcomes debate on the idea of allowing school districts to have charter school flexibility.

    "Our association hasn't taken this up yet," Goodall said. "Debating all those options would really be good."

    "One caveat is we want to make sure we remember what charter schools are," Goodall said. "They have to have the components of choice, accountability, and autonomy."

    Goodall said he questioned how much autonomy such a school would have if the local school board had control over the charter school's governing body.

    He said that such schools could be placed in a different category. "The new schools could be called 'select schools,'" Goodall said. "They could have some of the exemptions of charter schools, but not be charter schools."

    Also up for debate, Goodall said, would be whether district school systems operating charter schools would get local allotments for capital expenses. Charters schools now receive operating expenses from the school district, but aren't given capital expenses to build and renovate school buildings.

    Stoops said that the positive comments coming from the local school board members "validates the model" of charter schools.

    "I'm wondering whether this signals that charter schools are looked at so favorably by the public that traditional schools want to replicate that model," Stoops said.

    Goodall also commented on the performance of charter schools.

    "If you think charter schools have done well, then it would be illogical not to see district schools wanting to benefit from some of the same exemptions of charters," Goodall said.

    Members of the Forsyth County Board of Education previously had advocated the flexibility now sought by their Wake County counterparts. Two years ago, then-freshman Rep. Donny Lambeth, R-Forsyth, and a former member of the county school board, introduced a bill authorizing a pilot program allowing local schools to convert existing public schools to charter schools.

    The bill filed by Lambeth would have authorized the State Board of Education to implement a five-year pilot program allowing up to 10 local school systems to charter schools. Local school boards could approve new charter schools, or they could convert an existing school into a charter school. That bill never made it out of committee.

    Lambeth said he did not plan to reintroduce that legislation in the 2015 session, though he did support other unspecified flexibility measures for schools.

    The State Board of Education last fall received applications to open 40 new charter schools for the 2016-17 school year.
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