The "Charter School" debate heats up in N. C. with significant issues for Beaufort County | Eastern North Carolina Now

    There is a storm coming in public education in North Carolina. We have previously reported on the case of Sugar Creek Charter School et. al. v. CMS. And we have told you about the direction the U. S. Department of Education is headed. Both events indicate that charter schools are poised for a surge.

    Charter schools are public schools that are tuition-free to students and supported by the same tax dollars as traditional public schools. And that is what the court ruled. They must get the same dollars that the traditional public schools get. But in many counties they have been shortchanged. Now it appears that will be changing, although the traditional public school interests are resisting strongly.

    Here's the basic idea. Charter schools are created for two reasons: To provide parents with a choice in which school their child will attend and secondly, to remove bureaucratic restrictions the state imposes on traditional schools in order to foster innovation. The idea was that if a student left the traditional public school system and enrolled in a charter school the money that student generated in revenue should follow the student to the charter school.

    By virtually any measurement, charter schools have been a rousing success. Direct comparison of some data is not legitimate because many charter schools cater to "challenged students" and there have been no significant studies done in North Carolina that compare student performance of charter school students to what their performance was before they entered the charter system. Nor are we aware of any classical experimental/control group studies comparing performance. But on the essential standard of parent choice, the evidence is overwhelming in favor of charter schools. The demand is greater than the supply. Martin County parents in the Bear Grass area are an example of parents pushing for raising the "cap" the state has imposed on opening more charter schools. The Federal government is pushing the creation of more charter schools.

    Here in Beaufort County the Washington Montessori Public Charter School (WMPCS) is thriving. They recently made a substantial addition to their facilities. And the performance of the students appears to be good, although, again, the research is week on valid comparisons.

    But what is not uncertain is that the charter schools are doing their job with less money than the traditional public schools. That is what Sugar Creek was about. But that case dealt only with "current expense." The next battle will be about capital outlay funds (facilities and equipment).

    Beaufort County Schools has been forwarding to the local charter school the per pupil county appropriation in current expense, and according to newly elected superintendent Dr. Don Phipps, a pro rata share of fines and forfeiture revenues.

    But in response to direct questions from the Observer for over six months now, the BCS Finance Officer has failed to respond to provide the details of the computation of the WMPCS' share of funds. Dr. Phipps has just begun to look into it and we expect to hear from him shortly.

    There is a movement afoot to take the issue of whether charter schools are due a pro rata (per pupil) share of facilities money. If the court rules the same as it did on current expense then that could have significant implications in Beaufort County, where the school have recently spent nearly $40 million on facilities but without giving WMPCS any share of that money.

    It is a highly technical issue, involving how you compute "average daily membership" and what funds are included in the numerator that the pro rata share is determine by. And there are sticky legal issues, not the least of which will be an issue in Beaufort of the statute of limitations if facilities funds are determined to be due the WMPCS.

    And of course, all this comes at a time of tight budgets. The Beaufort County School Board is spending all of its facilities money without setting aside any for the possibility that part of its funds may be ordered to be shared with WMPCS. And the fact that the Finance Officer, who is responsible for the correct computation of the charter schools pro rata share, could not or would not tell us how she computed the amount they did get does not bode well for it not being an issue going forward.

    Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.