Board: 'Misleading' parts of NC charter schools report should be changed so it's not 'blown way out of proportion'

CSAB members asked the state's Office of Charter Schools, which compiles the report, to better explain that charter schools do not receive as much funding as traditional public schools and that they provide their own facilities, which saves taxpayers money.

"Charters operate on roughly 75 cents to the dollar versus traditional schools," said Joe Maimone, a non-voting member who serves as the state superintendent's chief of staff.

Kris Nordstrom, a senior policy analyst for the liberal North Carolina Justice Center, disputed that figure in an email to WRAL News.

Charters "are funded pretty much exactly like traditional public schools when it comes to federal and state funding" and "outpace their traditional school counterparts" in local funds, according to Nordstrom.

CSAB members debated how to calculate how much charter schools spend on their facilities and how much money that saves local school systems and counties.

"We do have the estimated square footage of all of our schools and we just haven’t computed all the savings, nor have we put it in this report," said Dave Machado, director of the Office of Charter Schools. "It’s a great point. We do intend to add it to this report."

Board member Lindalyn Kakadelis urged her colleagues to consider how much charter schools spend on purchasing land and preparing it for construction, not just the building costs. But not all charter schools have new buildings, her colleagues said. Some operate out of modular units, churches or strip malls.

"I think that’s a great analysis that we need to do," said CSAB Chair Alex Quigley. "But I’d just like to ensure that the numbers are accurate and we’re delivering that data in a way where we’ve really researched it."

Another sticking point in the report was how charter schools' student diversity is portrayed. Page 8 and 9 of the report include a breakdown of students by race and compares that to traditional public schools. The report found that:

Several board members suggested removing the entire section because it compares the diversity of individual charter schools to entire school districts instead of looking at individual schools within those districts to see how diverse they are.

"One of the big arguments on charter schools is that we are resegregating. I would say that district schools are also resegregating," Kakadelis said. "So it kinda can prove somebody’s point, 'Hey, you’re resegregating.' Well, well, no. I just struggle with this whole section."

Maimone agreed and said that portion of the report is "so misleading" and "needs to come out."

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No matter how student diversity is portrayed in the annual charter schools report, it needs to be comprehensive and accurate, the CSAB chairman said.

"Reading this [report], I think it doesn’t represent what I believe to be true, which is actually a greater level of diversity and probably a closer approximation to the populations in the local school districts than is actually represented," Quigley said, adding that they should do a deeper dive into the data.

Board members also requested more context around charter schools' grades and how they compare to traditional schools.

"The big one im concerned about is the A, B, C, D, F breakdown by percentage of economically disadvantaged [students]," Maimone said. "I think that’s a very misleading chart and is going to get blown way out of proportion if we don’t either remove it or give some greater detail on it."

People are "going to jump down our throats" after seeing those numbers, he added.

"The only [charter] schools that have As and Bs are ones that have no economically disadvantaged kids. That’s the headline that’s going to come out of that. And it's incredibly misleading," Maimone said. "I would vote to just remove the whole thing unless we can get a lot more clarification and clean up on that or additional data on traditional schools."

CSAB members also requested more positive stories about charter schools be included in the report, including how charters are collaborating with traditional schools and the strides they're making in proving transportation for students.

"Fifty-one percent of schools that have been open for one to five years provide bus transportation, so that’s an important story to tell," Quigley said.

Despite their concerns about the report, CSAB members thanked the Office of Charter Schools for compiling the information and said they would like to preview the report earlier next year instead of the week before it's sent to the state board.

The draft report will be updated with the CSAB's recommendations and sent to the state board for discussion next week and a vote on a final version in February.

Charters are publicly funded and privately run schools that do not charge tuition. They have been booming in North Carolina with more than 100,000 students enrolled at 196 schools across the state. Twelve charters opened this year, and 10 more are expected next year – putting the state's count at 206 charter schools.

State funding for charters has grown from about $16.5 million in 1997, when there were 34 schools, to now more than $674 million.