The State Board of Education gave preliminary approval to four new charter schools at its meeting in July. The schools are Carolina International School in Cabarrus, Children’s Community School in Mecklenburg, Kinston Charter Academy in Lenoir, and PACE Academy in Orange counties. They plan to open for the 2004-05 school year.

For parents seeking alternatives to traditional public schools, the charters are a welcome addition. Still, the new charters represent no net gain in the 100-school charter cap, the maximum number allowed in North Carolina.

The schools bring the currently authorized number to 98, just two schools short of the limit. A 99th school application from Guilford Early College may falter if 50 percent of its high school faculty are not certified by the state, as the No Child Left Behind law requires.
In North Carolina, the final authorizing body for charter schools is the State Board of Education. State law allows local boards to pre-approve charter schools, and a state-level Charter School Advisory Board makes preliminary recommendations. But all binding decisions rest with the State Board.

The current cap on charter schools places a heavy burden on the performance of existing charters, said Roger Gerber, president of the League of Charter Schools. With 98 schools now approved, and the 99th pending review, opportunities for would-be charter operators to increase student choice have virtually come to a halt. Most charter slots are allocated by a lottery among applicants.

According to Gerber, there are trade-offs for charter operators when it comes to funding and accountability. Charters receive funding for students, but not for capital expenses. Some look and operate much like regular public schools. But a few serve students that would be considered “alternative populations” in the regular schools, Gerber said. Under No Child Left Behind, the public school status of these charters leads to accountability problems.

Crossnore Charter

At Crossnore Charter School, Inc., Principal Marion Krege serves children who 12 years ago would have been sent to regular public schools. Most of last year’s 76 students at Crossnore were residents of the Crossnore Childrens’s Home. The residential home is a refuge for abused, neglected, and abandoned children. The children are typically placed in the Children’s Home by the courts — taken off the streets, or out of abusive homes. A few are placed by a relative. “When charter schools came along, that was a perfect fit for the children,” Krege stated. Krege has been in education for almost 40 years.

According to Krege, the 2002 Children’s Home statistics show that 67 percent were in homes with substance abuse, 86 percent were abused or neglected, and 12 percent were abandoned and left to raise themselves. The statistics overlap because some children fall into more than one category.

When the children arrive at the school, Krege said, the Home develops a plan of care “to determine where the child is, and where you want to move the child in a plan.” Case managers, counselors, and a psychologist work with the kids on school, family, and life issues. Academically, Crossnore gets some high-school-age kids who are seven years behind in reading. Many have never learned any significant self-discipline, and the demands of school are far outside their frame of reference.

Krege would like the school to be considered for alternative school status, she said, because “These kids don’t do well in the regular public schools, and the regular schools don’t want them.” Although Crossnore has been a low-performing school for two years, Krege anticipates improvement in the 2003 test results. She is glad to be part of the public schools, she said, because of public funding.

Under No Child Left Behind, Crossnore children must meet the same adequate yearly progress goals in each grade as children in normal school and family situations. “To hold us accountable to the same standard is unfair,” she said. “We would like to stay a public charter school, but be able to use alternative assessments. We’d like to continue to voluntarily participate in the state tests as well, but not be required to meet the same accountability standard.”

Enrollment is unpredictable and transient, which makes achievement goals even harder to reach. Nevertheless, Crossnore graduated seven high school students in 2003. Former State Board of Education Chairman Phil Kirk was the speaker at Crossnore’s 2002 commencement ceremony.

Charters such as Baker, Grandfather Academy, Crossnore, Lakeside, and Kennedy (Charlotte), all serve students, Gerber said, that would qualify as alternative populations. The “alternative” designation would allow more flexibility in testing and assessment, and put them on an equal footing with alternative schools in the non-charter category. Without alternative status, they may find it difficult to meet the AYP requirements.

Charter outcomes and competition

North Carolina has produced positive results in many charter schools so far. In 2002, the North Carolina Education Alliance measured average SAT scores for charter high schools that had been in operation for at least three years. The average SAT score for conventional public schools in North Carolina was 980 in 2002. Three-year-old charters had an average score of 1019, just a point below the national average. In SAT scores, charter schools in North Carolina have been holding their own.

An extensive study of charter performance was done on California schools by the Rand Corporation. The 2003 study, “Charter School Operations and Performance: Evidence from California,” was designed to compare the academic performance of regular public school students with that of charter school students. It also looked at differences in student performance that might be caused by differences in the types of charter schools that children attended.

The California Academic Performance Index used in the study includes Stanford 9 scores, the California Standards Test, and other measures. The study could not include about 25 percent of California’s charters, a factor that Rand says may make affect some of the results they measured. School-level outcomes for start-up, conventional, and conversion charter schools show similar achievement growth to conventional public schools, Rand said.

The type of charter school also made a difference. Non-classroom instruction was correlated with lower scores, and newer schools were correlated with higher scores. Math and reading results were sensitive to the grade and the age of the student.

In the longitudinal study, charter schools of all types had slightly worse math, but slightly higher reading scores, for middle and high school students than did conventional schools. “Overall, the analysis shows that charter school students are keeping up with comparable students in conventional schools,” the study says.

The competitive effects of charters on conventional schools are of interest, but hard to measure.
“Because few students enroll in charters, few conventional public schools face the direct pressure of their students leaving for a charter school alternative,” the study says.

Competitive effects may exist, however. As Rand notes, “One of the most measurable ways in which charter schools can influence conventional public schools is through the competition for students.” If conventional schools feel pressure to improve through “operational changes,” the charter effect will be positive for conventional school students as well.

Palasek is assistant editor at Carolina Journal.