The State Board of Education has new guidelines for charter schools, setting clear performance standards and emphasizing innovation as a focus for new schools.
Charters will be revoked if, in two of three years, students do not learn as much as expected and if fewer than 60 percent score at or above grade level on standardized tests.
If these rules had been in effect for the past three years, seven schools would have lost their charters, according to Jack Moyer, head of the state charter school office.
A charter school operator in Kinston determined that a dozen charters would be revoked under these rules if they had been in place since 2004. Charter school operators said the new policy was unfair to schools whose students are below grade level but improving.
"We have to allow more time, I think, for schools to develop," said Don McQueen, executive director of Torchlight Academy in Raleigh. The school came close to having its charter revoked this year but was granted an extension after agreeing to meet certain academic goals and audit guidelines.
Gov. Bev Perdue asked the State Board of Education to rework its policies on charter schools, which have taken on significant political implications.
The state is under constant pressure to lift the current limit of 100 charters, something Perdue does not want.
McQueen said Torchlight, whose students demonstrated high growth based on end-of-grade tests last year, is an example of good results that can be achieved when charters are given a chance to improve.
"I think that if a school is making progress, that some reasonable examination of a school's overall progress should be taken into account," McQueen said.
Torchlight is also an example of a school that successfully lobbied legislators and waged a public relations campaign this year to combat the state Department of Public Instruction's recommendation that its charter be revoked.
Torchlight won a conditional renewal about the same time that another charter, PreEminent Charter School in Raleigh, was also spared. Shortly after it decided to give PreEminent more time, the school board was asked again to consider revoking PreEminent's charter because students scored poorly on end-of-grade tests.
Charter schools receive public funding but aren't bound by many of the rules that apply at traditional public schools. They are independent schools typically run by private boards, and they have the freedom to set their own curriculum.
State legislators of both parties routinely try to add more charters. Perdue and other education officials recently had to push back against the Obama administration's preference for charter schools as crucibles for innovation, expressed in its early guidelines for states seeking millions in competitive federal education grants.
Bill Harrison, chairman of the state board, has said that some applicants have better ideas than existing charters, and that the state Department of Public Instruction wanted to put renewed emphasis on charters as incubators for new ideas.
Under the new policy, the board will give priority to applicants "who demonstrate potential for significant, meaningful innovation in education."
