When North Carolina lost in the first round of grants from the Obama administration's $4.35 billion Race to the Top education initiative, state policymakers did little to embrace the reforms Washington suggested would provide a better chance to win funding the second time around.
Race to the Top is looking more and more like a program valuing conformity over innovation, and hidebound interest groups over reformers.
The main reason charter schools enjoy the freedom to innovate is that they are out from under the control of school districts.
That extending opportunity to children may also brighten NC’s fiscal outlook should be an extra incentive for Gov. Perdue and the legislature to do the right thing.
