While the Republican leadership is talking education reform — including offering more choices for parents and students — a freshman GOP representative is putting forth a new twist on charter schools.
Rep. Donny Lambeth, R-Forsyth, would like to give entire school districts the option of converting to charter school districts.
Lambeth, who was chairman of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education for 18 years, said that school officials often discussed charter schools and their flexibility.
“It often came up that charter schools have an advantage because they don’t have to follow the same rules and regulations that we follow,” Lambeth said.
He said in his discussion with other educators, the concept evolved that traditional public schools and charter schools should cooperate more.
“Charter schools make public schools better,” Lambeth said. “Competition makes everybody better.”
Charter schools are public schools that generally don’t have to comply with as many regulations as traditional public schools. They generally operate independently of local school boards and have their own governing board of directors.
Charters get government funding, which is usually comparable to what is spent per pupil for operating expenses in their local area. However, they don’t receive additional capital funds to pay for school buildings the way traditional schools do.
Lambeth said that over the past several months, the idea of giving traditional public school systems more flexibility continued to evolve.
“What if we changed and allowed a district to operate under the same guidelines and rules as a charter school?” Lambeth asked. “Would that allow them to be more creative and more innovative?”
Lambeth is drawing some support for the concept from the superintendent of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth school system.
Donald Martin, the superintendent, said that having the ability to have a charter school district would give local boards of education more flexibility than they currently have.
“I think there are several districts in the state that would be interested in exploring that,” Martin said.
“This would be charting new waters for the state,” said Joel Medley, director of the N.C. Office of Charter Schools.
Medley said that it’s a safe assumption that there would need to be clarifying legislation for a school district to convert entirely to a charter school district.
Judith Rizzo, executive director of the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy, said that there is potential for such a concept to move forward, “even if this just creates a forum for folks to identify what’s in the way.” Rizzo notes that a lot of educators feel “overwhelmed by paperwork.”
Martin has pushed for the ability for local school boards to have more authority in issuing charter schools. He produced a white paper for school superintendents on the issue.
Currently, all charters have to be granted by the State Board of Education.
Allowing local school boards to grant charters would give both local school administrations and charter schools the ability to prepare students better, his report says.
“We can provide some infrastructure and work with the charter school,” Martin said.
School systems could help provide things such as transportation and school lunches, Martin said. He noted that that the inability of some charter schools to provide meals and means of getting to school can become barriers for some parents who want to send their children to charter schools.
Lambeth said that he had originally thought about introducing legislation that would just convert the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools into a charter district. But he said since the idea has surfaced, other legislators and school districts have discussed the possibility of allowing charter school district pilot projects across the state.
He has not written the legislation, Lambeth said.
“It is a concept,” he said. “We’re just going to think through all the implications.”
He said he has been meeting with different education groups, including the Department of Public Instruction and charter school groups, to get their opinion on the idea.
“My plan is to think through this over the next couple of weeks,” Lambeth said. He noted that any move to convert a local school system to a charter school system would be voluntary.
Barry Smith is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.