THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 10, 1997 TAG: 9702100036
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY EMERY P. DALESIO, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: 101 lines
One day after President Clinton said the country needed thousands more charter schools, the state Board of Education put nine of the schools on track to open next fall.
But questions remain about the concept and whether the schools will change education in North Carolina.
``What makes a charter school different?'' Raleigh parent Sandy Durso asked Friday when she visited the state Department of Public Instruction.
She was interested in a proposed school approved by Wake County's school board concentrating on science and the environment. Durso, a reading tutor and library volunteer at the magnet school her two sons attend, said she's searching for something even better.
``What I'm looking for is a really exciting education for my kids,'' Durso said. ``I didn't want my kids to be just around smart kids. . . . I want them to be with everybody because as they grow up they'll have to work with all kinds of people.''
So far, about 31 proposals from 23 counties have cleared a first step in a review process that will end after a final vote by the state board next month.
Charter schools are deregulated public schools opened on behalf of a nonprofit corporation. The schools do not have to pay teachers a state-set salary, provide breakfast or lunch, or follow state or local guidelines on the length of the school day.
The school must meet student achievement goals. If the charter school fails, it can be closed. It also must conform to state laws, such as those governing safety and non-discrimination. It cannot promote religion.
Beyond that, their concepts vary widely, from preserving a community school to programs for at-risk or dyslexic children.
The name comes from the charter, or contract, that makes the nonprofit responsible in return for collecting the state and local tax money that accompanies each student.
``The whole essence of a charter school is to get the schools out of the hands of education professionals and bureaucrats,'' said Tom Williams, who runs a private remedial-education company in Raleigh and who led a failed bid for a charter from the state school board.
The General Assembly last summer allowed the experiment in public schools also under way in about half the states. About 95 percent of the estimated 400 charter schools in the country are in five states: California, Arizona, Michigan, Colorado and Massachusetts.
One academic critic of charter schools describes proposals typically coming from people with three types of motivations:
Conservatives who believe that private, market-driven systems are always better than public systems.
Entrepreneurs who believe they can turn a profit by delivering a better product.
Reformers who want to expand public school options and provide the creative tension that will improve all schools.
``You can't blame the public for being confused for not understanding what being a charter school means,'' said Alex Molnar, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and author of a new book on market-based education reforms called ``Giving Kids the Business: The Commercialization of America's Schools.''
``Here's the problem with regard to discussing charter school: charter schools are an all-purpose reform behind which politicians of all stripe can hide,'' he said.
Clinton supports creating 3,000 charter schools nationwide as a way to give parents the right to choose the right public school for their children.
``Their right to choose will foster competition and innovation that can make public schools better,'' Clinton said in his State of the Union speech last week.
Conservatives may view charter schools as the next-best-thing to vouchers, Molnar said.
In Rocky Mount, business leaders including retired Hardee's chairman Jack Laughery and retired Centura Bank chairman Robert Mauldin are backing an effort to show that the free market can improve education.
Their group plans to contract with a Massachusetts company to run the Rocky Mount Advantage Charter School, one of those approved by the state last week, at a profit. The school would have classes for up to 540 students from kindergarten through fifth grade.]The local school board opposes the group's charter school proposal, fearing in part that it could restore segregation addressed only a few years ago by the merger of separate school districts in Rocky Mount and Nash County.
Not so, said Doug Haynes, a Centura Bank vice president and organizer who has two children in the city's schools. The charter school would be open to all and marketed to all.
The wealthy could always afford private schools, Haynes said. The charter school would extend hope to parents of modest means who could direct the nearly $4,000 in tax money that follows each student.
The motive is far different for backers of a charter school for the Pamlico County town of Arapahoe, population 450. They want to preserve a public elementary school twice threatened with closure by the county school board. Its backers say it would serve most of the same students and keep most of the same teachers - although the teachers say that hinges on whether they would keep their benefits. It would be taken over and governed by the parents and students.
``We really feel the school has been a unifying factor in our community. It has been since desegregation,'' said Merritt Watson, who headed the local charter school effort.
``But also we feel a small, community school benefits the students, it benefits the parents. There's more parental involvement if you have a community school.''
KEYWORDS: CHARTER SCHOOLS