RALEIGH — When Gov. Beverly Perdue was elected last November, champions of school choice steeled themselves for a long four years. “I don’t support removing the cap on charter schools,” Perdue told Carolina Journal in December, reiterating her support for phasing out underperforming charter schools before new ones are brought online.

And while the 2009 session of the General Assembly briefly gave charter school supporters hope that the cap might be lifted ever so slightly, school-choice advocates will have to wait at least another year for any relief.

In May, the state House passed House Bill 856, a move to modify charter school law by raising the cap on the number of charter schools by six, to no more than 106 schools statewide. The bill reads: “The State Board shall authorize no more than five charter schools per year in one local school administrative unit … (with) priority (given) to applications for schools that will be located within local school administrative units that have no charter schools.”

The bill died in a Senate committee.

Charter schools analyzed

School-choice backers had hoped that study released in mid-June would prod lawmakers to act. The study, released by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes, or CREDO, determined that charter school students in North Carolina “perform significantly better than their traditional public school peers” in reading, even though their math skills seem to lag significantly.

The CREDO study looked at thousands of charter schools across the country. Some of the results may not be surprising to watchers of public education: As CJ reported in December, charter schools tend to be at the extremes of performance, while traditional public schools tend to cluster in the middle. Indeed, the CREDO study found that nationwide, 17 percent of charter schools reported academic gains that were significantly better than traditional public schools; 37 percent displayed gains that were worse than those in their counterparts.

In North Carolina, reading gains on state achievement tests outshined the poor gains in math. However, the significant differences in performance in reading and math between charter school students and those in traditional public schools were mitigated over the next few years, as students settled into the charter schools. By their fourth year in charter schools, North Carolina students reported substantial gains in both math and reading.

Perhaps most interesting, how¬ever, is what the CREDO study found regarding the impact of state policy on students’ individual performances. “States with caps limiting the number of charter schools reported significantly lower academic results than states without caps limiting charter growth,” the study reported.

Cap trap

The issue of removing the cap is timely in another ways, as well. At least one of President Obama’s stimulus-related education initiatives has come down on the side of unlimited charter schools, to a point. The Race to the Top Fund is part of what the Department of Education calls the “largest one-time investment in K-12 public school reform,” with $4.35 billion in grants up for grabs. North Carolina is seeking a large chunk of that money.

But as the details of the grants become clearer, North Carolina will have to come to terms with its heavy-handed charter school law, which may put it at a disadvantage compared with the nearly 15 other states without numeric limits on their charter schools. Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in June that “states that … put artificial caps on the growth of charter schools will jeopardize their application.”

In January, a Blue Ribbon Commission on charter schools, an ad hoc committee made up of state Board of Education members and Office of Charter Schools director Jack Moyer, among others, recommended to the legislature that the number of charter schools be raised to 106. The idea of a cap remained, Moyer said.

“The cap is a huge debate, whether it should go up or shouldn’t go up. My personal opinion is … quality is more important that quantity,” Moyer said, reflecting a sentiment Duncan shared in June.

“I don’t think … you can say more is better. [Charter schools] need to monitored, there are governance issues, accountability issues. All those things need to be looked at.”

Accountability

Supporters of a cap, or at least those who aren’t against having one, often cite charter schools’ accountability as a significant obstacle to free market public education.

“I believe that charter schools have huge accountability [considerations]. They’ve requested a charter saying they can make a difference in a specific way based upon a curriculum they’ve designed,” Moyer said.

“I believe they should be accountable for what they say they will do. If they’re not doing it as well as or better than the traditional public schools in the area, then there are really no reasons to put [funds] in the charter schools” instead of traditional public schools, he continued.

Still, without saying what limit he thinks is ideal, Moyer admitted that more charter schools would be better. “But again,” he added, “we need to improve the schools that are here.”

A political game

It’s not all about accountability, says state Sen. Eddie Goodall, R-Union. Goodall is convinced the Democratic majority in the Senate will thwart any attempts to expand charter schools. Goodall has either introduced or co-sponsored a number of bills in the Senate related to charter schools this year, including one to remove the cap on the number of charter schools, to no avail.

This could explain why Goodall is cynical about the General Assembly’s approach to education; he says it is all about “parties and power and loyalty to people who are giving [politicians] campaign contributions.” He continued, “It doesn’t look any better to me now than it did in 2005 when I arrived at the Senate.”

But Goodall knows firsthand some of the challenges that face charter schools; he was a co-founder of a charter school in Union County. He urges people not to compare charter schools to traditional public schools, saying it’s not a fair game.

“An individual charter school is competing against the world,” not just the other public school down the road, he said.

And that’s the whole point. The unique nature of each school is “what makes the concept more dynamic,” Goodall added.

Goodall sees no significant change on the horizon until Raleigh’s party leadership changes, but says he remains hopeful that the number of charter schools will continue to increase incrementally.

Colleen Calvani is a contributor to Carolina Journal.