Prodded by Gov. Bev Perdue, the legislature is racing toward allowing as many as 135 additional charter schools in the state, as long as they're controlled by school boards.
Under a bill the House Education Committee approved Thursday, local school boards would be allowed to convert continually low-performing schools into charter schools, as long as the State Board of Education OKs it.
The state has 135 schools in which, in two out of three years, less than half the students did work at or above grade-level.
The Perdue administration wants to have the new law in place by June 1, the application deadline for federal Race to the Top grants. Federal officials have looked favorably on the concept of states reinventing low-performing schools.
Standard charters still capped
These school-board controlled charters would not count toward the state's cap of 100 independent charters.
A Republican amendment to lift the cap on standard charters from 100 to 106 failed in a party-line vote.
Rep. Paul Stam, an Apex Republican and the chamber's minority leader, said the legislature needed to raise the 100-school limit on standard charters if the state is going to have a real chance at the sizable federal grants.
"This will pick up a lot of points," Stam said of lifting the cap. "We're not going to get that money without it."
Perdue wants the bill because it "will give local school districts new ammunition in the fight to ensure that every child, no matter where he or she lives, has access to a quality education," her spokeswoman Chrissy Pearson said in a statement. "We simply cannot continue to tolerate schools that do not prepare our children to graduate ready for a career, college or technical training."
