Durham Public Schools Superintendent Carl Harris wants a ban on new charter schools in Durham County, which has the highest percentage of schoolchildren enrolled in charter schools in the state -- 8 percent. Superintendent Harris worries that the $8 million that's projected to be transferred to eight charters next year will adversely affect the school district's budget.

If money to educate kids is Harris' concern, he shouldn't be asking for a ban. He should be requesting Dell-like incentives to get more charters into Durham County. When it comes to squeezing a buck, there's no better deal in education than a public charter school.

But Harris' beef is only partially about money. It's also about control. The superintendent seems to forget that charter schools are public schools. He has no more moral authority to ask the state to ban charters than he does to ask neighboring Orange County to stop building traditional public schools.

A letter from Harris to State Board of Education Chair Howard Lee and Jack Moyer, the state's director of charter schools, is further evidence that Big Education refuses to recognize charters as public education partners. Instead, Big Ed regards charters as the enemy.

What else can explain North Carolina's artificial and capricious statewide 100-charter school cap? A 100-store cap on pizza restaurants makes just as much sense.

Harris bolsters his case for a ban by noting that 21 percent of the North Carolina's charter schools are in Wake and Durham counties. He argues that this concentration hardly meets the geographic diversity standard called for in the original legislation that allowed charter schools in the state.

What does "geographic diversity" have to do with a charter school? Silly me, I thought need and choice were the overriding standards, not location.

Unfortunately, most of Harris' letter revolves around the myth that charter schools hurt traditional schools financially. That can't possibly be the case.

There's no doubt that the 2,900 students projected to attend charters in Durham County next year will take nearly $8 million in revenue with them. But the system will also transfer $8 million in costs, possibly more, to the charter schools tasked with providing the children's education.

Of course, there's no such thing as a dollar-for-dollar education funding-to-overhead relationship. Administrators love to point out that if two pupils leave an 18-student classroom for a charter, the overhead for educating the remaining 16 kids is unchanged. True, but so is the reverse. If an 18-child classroom gains two students, overhead expenses -- lights, cooling and heating and audiovisual equipment - don't rise. But per-pupil revenue does.

Provided that a school district wisely manages its resources, the financial impact of charters should be negligible.

Capital costs are where the charter bargain comes in. Charters don't get one dime of taxpayer money to build classrooms. They're even shut out of education lottery money. Charter schools are on their own when it comes to paying for the facilities they need, whether the school's board leases, builds or rehabilitates property. It's their problem.

That requirement is saving Durham taxpayers, and every county that charters are operating in, a mountain of money.

In Durham County, if the public school system had to educate the existing charter students, it would have to find 2,900 seats it doesn't have. With elementary schools costing $20 million a copy and middle schools going for $30 million each, it's a safe bet that Durham taxpayers would need to come up with at least $50 million to build classroom space for those kids.

And I'd also lay money that before those new schools could come on line, mandatory year-round calendars would have to be implemented to bridge the seat gap. We all know how well that's going in Wake County.

Economics aside, the biggest problem with Harris' request for a charter school ban is that it would hurt his and the Durham Board of Education's efforts to regain the trust of parents. There's no getting around the reality that a ban would severely limit parental choice and responsibility. Harris and the school board have been pleading with parents to become more involved in their children's education. That involvement shouldn't be blocked if it involves choosing a charter school.