Charter schools bring excitement, tension

Originally published Feb. 18.

Two charter schools will open their doors in Buncombe County come August, opening with them greater tension over whether they will help or detract from public education.

North Carolina approved plans earlier this year for the Franklin School of Innovation, the county's first charter high school, and INVEST Collegiate, a K-6 school that hopes to expand into high school grades in coming years.

The demand for public school alternatives is high, with the county's existing charter schools sitting on waiting lists of several hundred students each year. That demand has been built, in part, by North Carolina limiting the number of charter schools to 100.

State legislators did away with that cap in 2011. The number of charter schools open or approved to open in August would double that number.

"Western North Carolina has great schools, but parents deserve a choice as to what the best fit is for their children," said Kate Alice Dunaway, coordinator for the INVEST Collegiate "Imagine" campus. "Students deserve a choice, and going to the school that they're assigned to is not a choice at all."

Charter schools are publicly funded but operate under independent boards, leaving them free to experiment with curriculum, instructional practices and teacher pay as long as they meet state performance standards.

But advocates for Western North Carolina's existing public schools say the cost of these alternatives might come at the expense of students with greater needs and those least able to attend charter schools, which have no requirement to provide transportation or free or reduced-priced lunches for students in poverty.

"Each new charter spreads limited funds further for infrastructure that already exists — buildings and technology and staff. But this new cost doesn't benefit all of our children — only a limited few who have the resources and opportunity to participate," said Kate Pett, executive director of the Asheville City Schools Foundation.

"The best investment of our public dollars is in the schools that serve all children," Pett said, "and bring our community together to nurture each child, and move our community forward together."

New schools

The two charters coming to Buncombe this fall have taken different approaches on drumming up community interest.

The Franklin School held community meetings over the last year, working with existing charter schools and publishing details on its website and Facebook page.

The school will serve grades six-nine in 2014 and eventually serve all high school grades, with a projected enrollment reaching 700 or more students.

School founder Michelle Vruwink said they expect to employ around 30 teachers and staff initially, with 70 total staff at capacity. They hope to open with 400 students, or about 100 per grade.

The school will be built on the "Expeditionary Learning model," a program derived from the Harvard Outward Bound Project that emphasizes hands-on, project-based learning expeditions. Asheville's Evergreen Community Charter School uses the same model.

Franklin announced Monday that it will be located at the intersection of Sand Hill Road and Lake Drive, near Asheville-Bouncombe Technical Community College's Enka campus.

The INVEST Collegiate school, which opened a charter in Charlotte last year, will hold community interest meetings later this month and has yet to identify a location, other than plans to find space along the I-26 corridor.

The school hopes to open with 250-300 students through grade six, eventually becoming a K-12 school with up to 1,300 students, Dunaway said.

Applications for the school are due March 10.

Dunaway said the school will offer only honors and advanced placement courses, other than those subjects that the state requires to be standard.

"There are choices in Asheville, but clearly there need to be more," Dunaway said. "Looking at the waiting lists for charter schools in this area, that demand is clearly not being fulfilled."

More choice, less accountability?

Buncombe's three charter schools have students in kindergarten-eighth grade, and they, historically, have operated in high demand, with waiting lists of students wanting admission.

Francine Delany New School for Children, Evergreen Community Charter School and ArtSpace Charter School had a combined 938 students in the 2011-12 school year.

Evergreen had a waiting list of 650 children last year, well more than its enrollment of 406 students.

Local charter schools have worked closely with traditional public schools in a mutually beneficial system, said Eleanor Ashton, Evergreen's development director who helped found the school 15 years ago.

"It's a big part of our mission to find best practices and work alongside other charter schools and traditional schools," Ashton said, "and we take that very seriously. When we want to build an outdoor classroom, we go to other schools to look at their outdoor classrooms, and when another school sees something we're doing well here we share that.

"I remember a time when we opened Evergreen when people were very suspicious of charter schools and just didn't know what they were," Ashton said. "We don't want to go back to that time. We all want quality options and quality public education."

Among the greatest concerns for traditional public school advocates has been the level of transparency charter schools are bound by, as well as performance regulations.

"Charter schools receive public funding, but that doesn't make them public schools," Asheville City school board member Leah Ferguson said. "One of the most essential things that distinguishes public schools from charter schools, what makes them ultimately more 'public,' is public accountability.

"I'm never disappointed in parents and teachers who are excited and passionate about education," Ferguson said. "I am disappointed in the divisiveness that seems to come along with the public school verses charter school debate."

Charter schools have autonomy with independent boards and lesser requirements for public meetings, though all three existing charter schools hold public board meetings and publish board minutes to their websites.

Buncombe County Schools is allotted $8,522 per student, which decides everything from how many teachers a school can employ to the number of textbooks they can purchase. That per-student allotment follows students to charter schools if they go.

"In the current budget climate, any reduction in operational funds certainly has the potential for reducing the quality of services from what we currently provide our students," Buncombe County schools Superintendent Tony Baldwin said.

"The reality is that we are currently in a competitive environment for parent choice regarding K-12 school options — public and private. From my perspective, making sure our 42 schools are the best they can possibly be will be receiving my primary efforts."

Diversity, self-selection

On paper, charter schools can be no more selective that public schools. They must accept any child that applies as long as there is room, and no child can be turned away based on grades, economic advantage, race or any other factors. Students are selected via lottery when there are more applicants than space.

But in practice, schools that require more parent involvement and offer fewer transportation options draw a different demographic, charter school critics say.

"Charter schools were originally intended to create educational alternatives to help students who were not successful in the regular public schools," Pett said "Local charters have not been successful in attracting those students. Instead, charters tend to attract students who would be successful anyway and concentrate poverty and need in the city schools."

Student performance in charter schools ranges almost as widely as it does in traditional public schools, dependent on the success of the school model as much as the demographics they attract.

The percentage of students who performed at or above grade level at Evergreen Community Charter, for example, well exceeded the state averages. Evergreen saw 76.7 percent of students proficient in reading last year, while the state average was 44 percent. More than 58 percent were proficient in math, while the state saw an average of 42 percent.

A little more than 55 percent of Evergreen's white students passed tests in both subjects, while the percentage of black students meeting both standards was too small to count. The school's African American population is about 1 percent, Ashton said. Buncombe County's is closer to 15 percent.

"Charter schools don't play by the same rules public schools do. This is good and bad," Asheville City School board member Matt Buys said.

"Charters let teachers inspire children, instead of forcing educators to constantly test and assess," Buys said. "But how many kids will you find from the neediest populations in our local charters?

"I wish our government would simply ease the bureaucratic restrictions that they have placed on public teachers, instead of using charter schools to sidestep government micromanagement," Buys said. "Ultimately, public schools have far more to offer with their array of sports, music, after school clubs and, most importantly, a concept of life that accepts everyone and stays committed to every child."

New charter schools will have initial authorization to operate for five years and can earn the ability to keep going after that by producing strong academic results in their first few years of existence.

The state House and Senate passed legislation in July allowing charter schools to skip expansion approval by the State Board of Education. Charter schoolsoperating at least three years and showing adequate student performance could add one additional grade to keep students who would graduate.

"The standards are extremely high, and they're really rigorous for starting schools, as well," Ashton said.

"I think these schools have to have a strong plan in place, and if they don't perform they'll be closed."

"We have the same concerns that anyone has about new schools opening," Ashton said. "We want a community of quality choices for quality education. I'm a public school advocate, always have been. I think we all want the same thing."

Western North Carolina has great schools, but parents deserve a choice as to what the best fit is for their children."