Charting A Course For Calamity
What started out as a fairly reasonable piece of legislation to eliminate the state-imposed cap on charter schools in North Carolina has devolved into a bill that merely lifts the existing cap by 50, while placing more restrictions and requirements on charter schools.
The latest version of Senate Bill 8, the so-called ““No Cap on Number of Charter Schools,” includes changes that Republican lawmakers said were meant to win bipartisan support and gain a veto-proof majority. After stripping the original charter school bill of much of its teeth, though, Republicans found themselves where they usually find themselves when trying to compromise with Democrats – that is, getting the shaft.
The watered-down bill won preliminary approval Thursday with a party-line vote in the House finance committee, with Democrats lambasting the legislation as anti-education – what with it allowing a reasonable alternative to government-run schools and all.
A final House vote is slated for next week with the bill then heading back to the Senate, which had approved a much different version earlier this year. The Senate would have to approve any changes made by the House, before the bill goes to Gov. Bev Perdue. If it gets there, House Minority Leader Joe Hackney has already predicted it would be met with a veto. See how that whole compromise thing works.
Meanwhile, the GOP is left with a “No Cap” charter school bill that still includes a cap. The bill would also muzzle the newly-created Public Charter Schools Commission (PCSC), originally intended to approve charter applications and administer school programs while operating semi-independently of the State Board of Education. New language places the charter commission administratively under the state board, which would require only a two-thirds vote instead of a three-quarters vote to reject PCSC recommendations.
Francis De Luca with the Civitas Institute runs down more of the gory details:
Current SB-8 legislation limits the number of new charter schools per year to no more than 50 … Under the new plan, local school boards can open “restart” or “charter lite” schools under Race to the Top. Because local school boards retain control over “restart”schools, such provisions represent a fundamental contradiction of the very nature of charters. If that isn’t bad enough, the new “restarts” count against the limit of 50 new schools annually. With over 100 local systems, if even half ask for one school the entire year’s worth of charters is used up.
– Under the current law, charter schools can choose to provide food and transportation services to students, and parents know when they apply for admission whether it is provided … The current version of SB-8 requires all schools to provide lunch services to students and transportations services to students whose family incomes are below 185 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, 185 percent of the Federal poverty level is $41,348. Outside many of the major metropolitan areas of North Carolina, there are many families whose incomes fall within this range. As such, it will require charter schools to bus high percentages of students with no additional funds to purchase buses or to build cafeterias. Such provisions erode institutional autonomy and flexibility, once a defining quality of charter schools. Ironically traditional public schools actually are not “required” to do either of these for students regardless of income.
– Under existing law, charter schools that fail to meet the goals of the charter are not renewed. SB-8 declares that schools with no growth in student performance and with annual performance composites below 60 percent in a three year period will be closed. These provisions will have a chilling effect on the number of charter schools and the populations they serve. Charter schools with large disadvantaged populations — many of whom enter schools several years behind grade level — will be forced to serve less needy students.
The fact that politicians and career educrats seem bent on remaining terminally resistant to any meaningful competition for government-run public schools speaks volumes about the state of the schools they are trying to protect.
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