Unease Pervades Charter School Meeting

RALEIGH — The sixth annual North Carolina Charter School Conference brought educators and activists to New Bern in late July to talk about issues such as the No Child Left Behind Act. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction sponsored the meeting to “provide charter school stakeholders the opportunity to come together to share innovative ideas and promising practices.” But one prominent leader of the charter-school movement complained that the “education monopoly” should not have been running the conference. “The vendors were the only portion of the conference that DPI was not responsible for and they were really helpful to the attendees,” he said.