More NC charter school oversight would move from superintendent under bill passed by NC House

The North Carolina House of Representatives approved a bill on a divided vote Wednesday that would shift oversight of the state's charter schools further away from the elected state superintendent and over to a board largely appointed by state lawmakers.

The language approved Wednesday is identical to language approved by the House in their budget bill in May, while the Senate has recently begun debating their own version of it, with some changes.

Senate Bill 254, approved as amended by the House on Wednesday, would largely cut the state superintendent of public instruction and State Board of Education out of the oversight of the state's charter schools, rendering final decision-making to the Charter School Review Board.

Lawmakers shifted the final say over charter school approval to the review board in 2023, but left the state superintendent in charge of hiring the executive director of the Office of Charter Schools and some other oversight and left the State Board of Education in charge of approving rules for charter schools.

The proposed bill would shift those powers over to the Charter School Review Board.

The bill wasn't debated on the floor Wednesday before passing 67-42, though Rep. Amos Quick III, D-Guilford, said he opposed its provisions before the vote. Democratic senators opposed the bill during a Senate education committee last week, arguing that the state superintendent was still responsible for charter schools and that the bill would take away his authority to adequately oversee them. Republican sponsors of the bill said the Charter School Review Board was better equipped to make decisions about charter schools.

The Charter School Review Board has 11 voting members, mostly appointed by state lawmakers. Four are Senate appointees, four are House appointees, two are State Board of Education appointees and one is appointed by the lieutenant governor. A twelfth, non-voting members, is appointed by the state superintendent of public instruction.

The superintendent is elected statewide. The State Board of Education has 13 members: 11 governor appointees who are subject to confirmation by the General Assembly, the elected state treasurer and the elected lieutenant governor.

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are independent of traditional public school systems and not required to follow as many of the same rules, though they are subject to renewal requirements every so many years. They're owned and operated by nonprofits and sometimes supported by larger parent organizations above them. They've proliferated nationwide since the 1990s as some politicians and education think tanks believed they could be centers for education innovation. They're now championed as being choices for families who are not satisfied with their assigned traditional public school.

Competing bills

Many of the charter school changes appear to have support in the Senate but the chambers are currently weighing different bills that include the changes.

Similar charter school language is contained in at least two other bills that have passed through either the House or a Senate committee.

The House budget and Senate Bill 254 — amended by the House — have passed the House. House Bill 832 — amended by the Senate — has passed through the Senate education committee. House Bill 832 is also an education omnibus, weaving in language from several other bills that didn't raise objections from Democrats when heard in the committee last week. But it doesn't completely match the language of the bills that have passed the House.

The House wants to make charter schools' proposals to move their building within a 10-mile radius of their current address and a "nonmaterial revision," meaning it wouldn't require an application before the Charter School Review Board. That language isn't part of the Senate committee's approved changes.

What's in the bill

All bills make a handful of other changes.

They allow charter schools to opt out of including class rank on high school transcripts, something many families from high-achieving schools have been asking local school boards for years. Traditional public schools would still be required to report class rank on high school transcripts.

Under the bills, low-performing charter schools would also no longer be required to follow many of the same rules as traditional public schools in creating school improvement plans but would still be required to create school improvement plans. The schools would not be subject to a section of state law that require school improvement team meetings to be public and for school staff to vote on them, among some other regulations.

The bills also allow charter schools to get a new charter for a "remote academy" if the academy grows or intends to grow to 250 or more students, via an expedited application process. The remote academy would receive a separate school performance grade, which is based largely or entirely on standardized test results.

The bills would also give the Charter School Review Board the final say on creating the system in which traditional public schools transfer student funding to charter schools. Currently, the state law requires charter schools to receive an equal share of county funding, per student, that traditional public schools receive, and traditional public school systems are required to cut the checks for it, a process that at times can lead to tension between the schools. State law currently gives the state superintendent the authority to decide how the transfer of funding works, and the bill would change that authority to the Charter School Review Board. It would still need to be done in consultation with both charter schools and traditional public schools.