This week the NC Public Charter Schools Advisory Council will review 27 “fast track” charter school applications.  The Howard and Lillian Lee Scholars Charter School is among the applicants. The school is named after Howard Lee, former Chapel Hill mayor, legislator, and chair of the NC State Board of Education, and his wife.

The proposed school received some media attention over the last few weeks because a handful of individuals and organizations, including the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, oppose the effort. Lee, who was the first black mayor of a predominantly white Southern town, has not responded to their concerns publicly.

However, in an article published in the News & Observer on Saturday, Lee argued that district schools cannot raise student achievement because the schools are too large and too diverse.  He observed,

Public [district] school can never, in my opinion, rise to the point of having all students rise to the highest level because of the size and the diversity.  But a charter school, if it’s run correctly, can take students and give them the more intensified attention that they can’t get in the public schools.

His Democratic colleagues (and the NAACP) may not share his perspective on the pitfalls of diversity, but African American parents largely agree with Lee.  According to a May 2007 doctoral dissertation that surveyed African American opinions of charter schools in North Carolina, 100% of African American parents accepted of the lack of diversity in their charter schools.  Overall, 81% said it was insignificant as long as their children were successful academically.