10/31 Letters: Charter schools don’t have a ‘secret sauce’

The N&O series on charter schools in North Carolina is excellent. The findings mostly mirror the national studies of charters, drawing the following conclusions:

Many charter schools’ admission practices can be ethnically and economically selective either by intention or by geographic location. Consequently, most charters, not unlike some private schools, continue to have high levels of racial and economic segregation.

Charters have failed in their charge from the state legislature to create breakthrough innovations to better serve at-risk students. In general, charters perform no better than regular public schools when it comes to benefiting these students. So much for the secret sauce ... there is not one.

Should the present trends continue, we will see in some areas the most easily educated children admitted to charters while the most challenging (poor, disabled, minority) will be left to the regular public schools. Not a good recipe for the future of the land of equality and opportunity.

Keep fair welcoming

Regarding “Confederate flag stickers handed out at State Fair draw complaints” (Oct. 21): I was appalled to learn that there was a booth at the fair handing out stickers with the Confederate flag, celebrating Confederate heritage. For a person of color, or for anyone who pledges allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, the Confederate flag stands for a failed rebellion against the United States, a rebellion based on defending the right to own a human being, to buy and sell a man, woman or child.

Slavery was the basis for the Confederacy; slavery meant selling, raping, beating and killing people of color. That flag has no place at a fair for all North Carolinians.

True ‘Carolina Way’

Butch Bracknell’s essay “Honor matters – but maybe not at Chapel Hill” (Oct. 27) struck a painful chord. When I came to Carolina in 1990, I was pleased and proud to be associated with UNC’s tradition of service to the state. Now I’m embarrassed by the administrative doublespeak that defends years of cheating yet remains silent when legislators interfere in academic matters.

This is not the “Carolina Way” that Bill Friday defended. Nor is the legislature’s interference in UNC’s governance something that UNC President (1919-1930) Harry Chase would have tolerated. When state Rep. David Poole sought to prohibit the teaching of evolution in the university, Chase responded to Poole’s threat to cut funding: “If the university doesn’t stand for anything but appropriations, I, for one, don’t care to be connected with it.” It is time for all those who have benefited from the nation’s first public university to speak up on its behalf and insist that its students, faculty, staff, and administrators return to the “Carolina Way” that used to stand for something.

This story was originally published October 30, 2017 at 6:00 PM with the headline "10/31 Letters: Charter schools don’t have a ‘secret sauce’."