Win the (court) battle; lose the war?

The fight ain't over



This AP report on Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy's legal victory over Rutherford County Schools is good news, of course, but it also touches upon a troubling reality--under current law school districts are now free to 'hide' more money from charter schools. 

"The General Assembly clarified the school funding law last year to expand the types of money that can be placed in segregated funds. It's a decision that gives districts more ways to prevent them from giving more money to charter schools, said Richard Vinroot, a Charlotte lawyer representing Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy."

When North Carolina's original charter school law was passed in 1997, the funding formula seemed clear enough: all public funds allocated for education were to be equally divided on a per-pupil basis between district and charter schools.  School districts were given the responsibility to calculate the per-pupil amount specific to their districts and pay their local charter schools accordingly. 

But from the very beginning some districts played games with the numbers, and the most popular of these games was to hide certain funds so they wouldn't have to be divided with charters.  When some charter schools caught on to what their districts were doing (the districts were not required to 'show their work' when calculating the per-pupil amount, and many still go to great lengths to hide their calculations from the public), lawsuits were initiated.  Charter schools won every single one of those suits, because the law was clearly on their side.

Fast forward to the closing hours of the 2010 General Assembly, when the then-Democratic controlled legislature was putting the finishing touches on that year's budget bill.  When the final version of that bill was presented for a vote it had somehow acquired overnight a new section 'legalizing' what the school districts had been doing all along, and giving those districts which had already been caught hiding money from charter schools up to three years to pay any court-ordered settlement.  This new section had been inserted into the bill (literally overnight!) at a point in the process where it could not be amended except by the bill sponsors themselves.  It was a coup of lobbying legerdemain by the North Carolina School Boards Association, completely bypassing the normal legislative process to get a special favor for its client, the state's school boards, and it worked.

As a result, school districts are now free to create 'special' accounts into which they may deposit whatever funds they so choose to pay for their 'special' programs.  School districts don't have to share funds in these special accounts with charters, and there is no language in the law defining what constitutes a special program these accounts are supposed to pay for.  Thus, an enterprising district chief financial officer could conceivably move significant sums of money from the 'local current expense account,' the account that all monies are normally put into, and which is divided evenly with charters on a per-pupil basis, and into one or more 'special' accounts, which are not shared. 

And thanks to last year's midnight skulduggery by lobbyists for the NC School Boards Association, it's all perfectly legal. 

Now, one might think that the more charter-friendly Republican controlled legislature would be inclined to fix that problem, and one would be right--to a point.  An effort was made to include language in Senate Bill 8, the bill that lifted the charter cap, to curb the use of special accounts and make districts more accountable for how they calculated and shared per-pupil expenses with charters, but that language was stripped out as part of the compromise that made the bill veto-proof. 

Of course, there's nothing that says the charter community cannot demand a fix to the problem in next year's budget bill.  Perhaps a section inserted into the bill the night before the final vote, returning the law to its original condition, and setting out financial penalties for districts that try to evade its provisions, hide their calculations, or drag their feet when it comes time to write the check...
   

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Finally, some love (well, some 'like' anyway) from the press

Kudos to the Winston-Salem Journal for its editorial on Wednesday recognizing that allowing well-prepared charter applicants to open new schools as early as next August is a good thing.  The editors praise the State Board of Education for its decision earlier this month to allow a 'Fast Track' approval process for charter applicants who were turned down in the last round only because of the now-defunct cap.

"The state board has shown common sense here, cautiously deciding that charters must not be rushed into operation but also recognizing that, in some cases, an opening date of next August is reasonable."

The W-S Journal has been one of the few mainstream media outlets in the state to show even a qualified understanding of, or support for, charter schools.  Back in June the paper editorialized in support of the stripped down version of Senate Bill 8 that removed the cap in this year's session, but demonstrated a poor grasp of the details, calling many of the bill's original provisions "misguided." 

"Some legislators even proposed reducing standards for charters so low that they would, in effect, become subsidized home schools." 

...sigh....

Well, newspaper editors can't always know what they're talking about.  But still it's good to see that there is at least one paper that doesn't always spout the anti-charter talking points of the public education cartel's praetorian guard.