NC may raise requirements for charter school renewals. Critics say it’s ‘draconian.’
Proposed North Carolina charter school policy changes could cause more schools to close or face shorter renewal periods than now allowed.
Last summer, the Republican-controlled General Assembly stripped the Democratic majority on the State Board of Education of its authority to approve and renew individual charter schools. Now the State Board is considering a policy amendment that would increase the academic, financial management and conflict of interest requirements for charter schools to be renewed.
The State Board now wants a charter school to score no less than two percentage points below the state test score of the school district it is located within. Currently, a charter school is allowed to be up to five percentage points below the district score when being considered for renewal.
“It recognizes those schools that are achieving quality standards in academics, in financial management, in conflict of interest, and rewards them with a longer term,” State Board chair Eric Davis said at this month’s meeting. “That’s appropriate because we need that stability.
“It also recognizes that for schools who cannot meet those standards of academic performance, financial management or conflict of interest, that they don’t continue.”
The State Board unveiled the draft policy this month for public comment. Charter school groups are urging the State Board to drop the changes or at least delay February’s vote on the policy.
“The Coalition supports appropriate and reasonable accountability measures for our state’s public charter schools,” Lindalyn Kakadelis, executive director of the North Carolina Coalition for Charter Schools, wrote in a letter sent Thursday to the State Board. “But this revised policy, as it is currently conceived, extends beyond that, with the capacity to do harm.”
Lawmakers transfer charter school power
Charter schools are taxpayer funded schools that are exempt from some of the rules that traditional public schools must follow. For instance, charter schools are not required to offer transportation or participate in the federal school lunch program.
There are now 211 charter schools statewide serving more than 140,000 students.
A recently released report shows North Carolina had the third-highest growth rate in the nation in charter school enrollment since the 2019-20 school year.
In August, state lawmakers transferred the state board’s authority over individual charter school approvals and renewals to the renamed N.C. Charter Schools Review Board. The Review Board consists of charter school advocates whose members are mainly appointed by legislators.
Once charter schools are approved, they have to be renewed to keep their charter. Schools can be renewed for up to 10 years. But some schools are renewed for terms of three, five or seven years or are not renewed at all.
One of the renewal requirements is that a charter school must demonstrate its academic comparability to the school district where it’s located. State law doesn’t definite comparability so it had been interpreted by the State Board as being within five percentage points of the district’s state test score.
The policy update comes as 17 charter schools are up for renewal this year and 38 are up renewal in 2025. Davis said one of the issues to be resolved is whether the policy change would apply to this year’s renewals.
Review Board guidelines questioned
In September, the Review Board adopted updated renewal guidelines that it submitted to the State Board for the policy update. The Review Board’s changes included new language such as saying a charter school being on financial noncompliance disciplinary status would affect its renewal.
But several State Board members said at the November meeting that the Review Board didn’t go far enough. For instance, State Board members questioned how a low-performing school could receive a 10-year renewal under the guidelines.
“It appears to me that the (renewal) bar for 10 years is lower than it is for three, five and seven,” State Board member John Blackburn said at the November meeting.
State Board member Jill Camnitz said the renewal guidelines didn’t address conflict of interest concerns that have been raised at several charter schools.
New definition of academic comparability
This month, the State Board unveiled an updated renewal policy that includes new language such as saying a low-performing school would not be eligible for a 10-year renewal.
The biggest change suggested by State Board members is a reinterpretation of the academic comparability requirement from five percentage points to two percentage points. The length of the renewal would depend on how many of the past three years the charter school has been comparable to the district.
If the charter school is targeting specific groups then the policy says the Review Board can also see how those students are doing compared to their peers in the district.
“In essence, it’s another effort to reward charter schools that are performing to the academic standard that we see,” said Davis, the State Board chair.
Changes called ‘draconian’
But Kakadelis of the N.C. Coalition for Charter Schools said the change to two percentage points is “problematic.”
“The shift from five points to two for performance comparisons is draconian, leaving little latitude in such a high-stakes decision for variations within charter-to-district comparisons,” Kakadelis wrote to the State Board. “Such latitude is critical, given the likelihood of a charter school’s much smaller size relative to an entire school district — and the outsized impact a few students can thus have on a charter school’s performance.”
Kakadelis said other new policy language could allow state Department of Public Instruction staff to “unilaterally declare the existence of ‘compliance issues’” to hold up renewals.
Rhonda Dillingham, executive director of the North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools, said if the new comparability standards were used this year that some charter schools would not be renewed.
Dillingham said any changes should only be used for schools facing renewal in 2025.
State Board’s authority questioned
The proposal split Republican State Superintendent Catherine Truitt and the State Board’s GOP members from the members appointed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
“The changes to the renewal process, that in my way of thinking should have been instigated, originated by the Review Board and then brought to the State Board of Education,” said State Board member Olivia Oxendine.
That point is echoed by the charter school groups.
“The process has been flipped,” Dillingham said in an interview. “The Review Board should be making recommendations and then the State Board should be taking it there.”
Kakadelis said the state law creating the Review Board requires any charter school rules adopted by the State Board to have been recommended by the Review Board. She also accused the State Board of not following the state rulemaking process for adopting policies that affect third parties.
State Board defends right to make change
But the majority of State Board members and their legal staff say the new policy does incorporate some of the recommendations from the state Office of Charter Schools and the Review Board. They also say that, despite the change that state lawmakers made to who decides on renewals, the State Board is within its rights to make the policy changes.
“The (State) Board does have the constitutional authority to pass policies,” said Allison Schafer, the State Board’s attorney.
State lawmakers could step in to block the policy changes. Last year, state lawmakers limited the State Board’s ability to withholding funding from new charter schools.
There wouldn’t be a need for a new policy if state lawmakers had left the State Board in control of charter school renewals, according to Heather Koons, a spokesperson for Public Schools First NC. Koons said the State Board has every right to hold charter schools to high academic standards.
“Public Schools First supports close examination of public charter schools because improving academic performance is presumably one of the goals of charter schools,” Koons said in an interview. “But any examination of performance should include examination of the demographics of the population.”
This story was originally published January 12, 2024 at 5:50 AM.
