CHARLOTTE - Students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools are more likely than peers statewide to lose their teachers or be taught by rookies, school report cards released Tuesday show.

Meanwhile, Mecklenburg taxpayers paid significantly more per student -- $2,517 per child, compared with an average local expense of $1,949 per pupil across the state. Local spending ranged from $1,542 to $1,842 in six surrounding counties.

Superintendent Peter Gorman said the county money helps the school system teach students who live in poverty or don't speak English well, as well as large numbers in advanced classes.

"We've got more kids at both ends of the spectrum," he said. "It's expensive."

School report cards, required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, compile data on test scores; discipline and safety; spending; and teacher experience, qualifications and turnover.

Much of the data, such as test scores and graduation rates, already have been released by the state or individual districts. But the new report gives a clearer picture of how districts stack up.

The comparison highlighted a plus for Charlotte schools: White students continue to outperform peers across the state. And for the first time, black and low-income high-school students are matching or surpassing state averages and peers in Wake County.

Minority and low-income students statewide and in both large districts continue to trail white and middle-class peers, however.

Parent Carol Sawyer said school data can be confusing. Test scores, for instance, don't tell the whole story of school success or failure.

But the teacher data is important, she said. According to the report cards, more than 1 in 4 teachers left Charlotte-Mecklenburg between March 2006 and this part March. Almost 1 in 3 had three years' experience or less.

The report cards show teacher turnover -- 26 percent in elementary schools, 31 percent in middle schools and 27 percent in high schools -- topped state averages last year, as well as the rates for Cabarrus, Catawba, Gaston, Lincoln, Iredell and Union counties.

Gorman said Tuesday that the system's numbers seem too high.

Most in North Carolina were taught by fully licensed teachers working in the field they were trained for, the report shows. But Charlotte-area students were more likely to have teachers with zero to three years' experience.

Middle- and high-school students in the system were also more likely to have "lateral-entry" teachers: those who switched from other careers or college majors and did not get a degree in education.

Charlotte civic leader C.D. Spangler recently announced a $4 million grant to help the school system recruit more teachers through Teach For America, a program that trains recent college graduates for two-year classroom stints.

Gorman said his goal is to keep those teachers well past two years.

Sawyer said Charlotte-Mecklenburg needs to do more to recruit experienced teachers. "Right now the carrots are trivial," she said. "If they were enough, they would have worked."