Published on Monday, May 07, 2007

NC charter school advocates looking to allies to help remove cap

The Associated Press

In the 10 years since the first charter schools opened in North Carolina, pushed at the time by a Republican-controlled state House, lawmakers have refused to eliminate a statewide limit on the number of the alternative schools.

Conservative advocates are now looking to follow the lead of charter school supporters in other states, where they have enlisted the help of Democrats who represent low-income urban areas _ where public schools often pale in quality to those in wealthy suburbs _ to rally more support for the movement.

"Elsewhere ... school choice reaches across party lines," said Terry Stoops, an education policy analyst at the conservative-leaning John Locke Foundation in Raleigh. "That's probably an area where the charter school movement needs to do a better job of selling that message."

As at a typical public school, charter schools are open to all, receive public money and don't charge tuition. But they are run by private boards, instead of the locally elected school board, and administrators don't have to follow all the regulations imposed on traditional public schools. Nationwide, there are more than 3,000 charter schools in nearly 40 states.

In North Carolina, the State Board of Education approves each school's charter, which details how the school intends to operate, which teaching methods it may use and the type of students it hopes to attract.

At Hope Charter Elementary School in downtown Raleigh, 105 students are taught in small classroom sizes. Many of the students are black and had bad experiences in traditional schools before succeeding in the alternative environment at Hope.

"I don't like the term 'at-risk students,'" said Robbie Graham, the school's principal. "These are children and parents that have not positive experiences in the big arena, and the drawing card for this charter school is individual attention (and) parent empowerment."

House Republicans _ in control of the chamber for the first time in nearly a century _ pushed through legislation in 1996 to create the charter concept in North Carolina. But the number was capped at 100, as lawmakers wanted to examine whether the schools were effective at improving student performance.

In 2004, researchers at Duke University looked at 6,000 students and concluded those at the state's charter schools were making smaller academic gains than those at traditional schools. Last year, a long-awaited report from the federal Department of Education last year concluded fourth-graders in traditional public schools were doing better in both reading and math.

"We don't believe that they have showed the academic performance to warrant lifting the cap," said Leanne Winner, a lobbyist for the N.C. School Boards Association. "We just don't think the time has come."

The N.C. Association of Educators, the state's largest teachers' lobby, backed the charter school concept in 1996 but wants more information about student performance before deciding whether to support removing the cap. Last week, House budget-writers recommended a measure that would allow the Department of Public Instruction to study charter schools over the next two years _ but not lift the cap.

Stoops and others argue there are shortcomings in the Duke study and a U.S. Department of Education report, and point to the schools' popularity with parents. In the past five years, charter school enrollment has increased 50 percent in North Carolina, according to advocates, who add there are more than 5,000 children on waiting lists.

Sen. Eddie Goodall, R-Union, and a founder of the Union Academy charter school in Monroe, thinks the state's county commissioners could become strong allies for lifting the cap. They are often pressed by population grown to raise property taxes or issue bonds to build more schools. He said creating more charter schools could help alleviate such overcrowding.

And there are signs more Democrats are ready to join the effort to remove the cap.

Speakers at a charter school rally last week at the Legislative Building included Stoops, Republican legislators and a representative of conservative group Americans for Prosperity. But joining them on the stage was Sen. Larry Shaw, D-Cumberland. In the rally audience, among scores of charter school students, was Carnell Robinson, chairman of the North Carolina Black Leadership Caucus.

"The issue is about children," said Robinson, who encouraged lawmakers to visit charter schools, where he said they would find students in a healthy and productive learning environment. "Somewhere in this building, (lawmakers) have forgotten that it's about the children."