Welcome
To be honest, I hadn’t planned on publishing a newsletter this week, but the editors of the News & Observer decided to write a dreadful editorial about charter schools. I can’t let that slide.
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CommenTerry
Today, the editors of the News & Observer offered their thoughts on charter schools in an editorial titled, "Charter schools need to be true to mission." I provided the link to the editorial, but you will not have to read it. You have read it before — many times. The following is the N&O charter school editorial formula:
- THE purpose of charter schools is to serve as laboratories to ultimately serve the district school system.
- But things are getting out of hand.
- Therefore, state education officials need to put these charter school zealots and entitled parents in their place by regulating the bejeezus out of them. Who do these people think they are, anyway?
The latest trigger for the editors of the News & Observer was news that the NC Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has received 170 Letters of Intent to apply to open a charter school.
Obviously not all 170 groups will submit an application for review. When DPI received 161 Letters of Intent last year, they did not receive 161 applications. A quick search of the N&O archives would confirm that fact.
The Office of Charter Schools at DPI received 70 applications, and only 26 applicants obtained permission from the State Board of Education to open their schools in 2014. That is a 16 percent success rate. Last year, a high school senior had a much better chance of attaining admission to UNC Chapel Hill.
Given the track record of the NC Public Charter School Advisory Council, which is in the process of being reconstituted due to legislative changes, there is no reason to suspect that they will approve more than 20 percent of the applications they receive. Why?
Most appointees to the council are successful charter school operators, administrators, board members, and teachers. They know what it takes to create and maintain a successful school and are able to identify elements of a successful school in the applications submitted to them. They acknowledge that the instructional plan — the "laboratory" part — is important. But no matter how innovative their instructional approach may be, it does not outweigh their business, facility, marketing, and governance, plans. After all, the council’s job is to ensure that the schools are good stewards of taxpayer money. Many charter school applicants do not pay enough attention to the organizational details of the proposed school and thus do not receive a charter.
That is not to say that the council is infallible. I strongly disagree with their position on virtual charter schools, for example. And occasionally, a promising charter school applicant employs inexperienced administrators or incompetent managers that make unwise financial decisions. (Charters’ district school counterparts are not immune to poor hiring and decisionmaking, by the way.)
I do not expect the editors of the N&O to change their tune anytime soon. They will dislike charter schools so long as Republicans support them. And that’s pathetic.
Facts and Stats
According to the state’s Office of Charter Schools, North Carolina has 127 charter schools operating this year.
Education Acronym of the Week
N&O — News & Observer
Quote of the Week
"Some parents apparently think charters are like having private schools within the public system because they are free from many rules, such as prescribed teaching methods, that govern regular schools, and they don’t have to answer to local districts." — Editorial, "Charter schools need to be true to mission," News & Observer, September 13, 2013.
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