Locke group cries foul

Charter schools to be held to 'punishing' standards, it says

By: By Kim Underwood | JOURNAL REPORTER
Published: February 26, 2010

More than 150 schools in North Carolina would be closed if they had to meet the standards that charter schools will soon face, a new study shows.

That includes as many as 18 in Forsyth County, according to the report by the John Locke Foundation, a conservative policy-research group in Raleigh.

Terry Stoops, the foundation's director of education studies, said he is not suggesting that the regular schools be closed. Rather, he is making the point that charter schools are being treated unfairly.

"Charter schools are already held to a higher standard than district schools," Stoops said.

He pointed to a policy adopted by the State Board of Education that states: "The State Board of Education shall revoke the charter of any charter school when, for two of three consecutive school years, the charter school does not meet or exceed expected growth and has a Performance Composite below 60 percent. For purposes of this policy, the first year test scores will be from the 2009-2010 school year."

The performance composite is the percentage of test scores that meet or exceed the state's proficiency standard for such measures as end-of-grade tests.

So schools that fail to meet the standards could be closed in 2012.

"I consider it the most punitive education policy that the State Board of Education has ever approved," Stoops said. "This, in a span of three years, could shut a charter school down."

William Harrison, the chairman of the state board, said that such a policy is necessary because the N.C. Department of Public Instruction has the power to intervene with lower-performing regular schools and work with them to improve performance.

"We don't have the resources and, really, the ability to do it with the charter schools," Harrison said. "We have some wonderful charter schools in the state, and some that aren't doing well."

For purposes of determining which charter schools could be closed under the new standards, the Locke Foundation looked at scores from the previous three years -- 2006-07, 2007-08, 2008-09. Using those measures, no charter schools in Forsyth County would be subject to closure but six charter schools elsewhere in the state, including ones in Mecklenburg, Wake and Durham counties, would be.

How many regular schools in Forsyth County would fail to meet the standards being put in place for charter schools depends on how the count is made. Atkins High School has three schools-within-a-school. If those are counted separately, the total would be 18. If not, the total would be 16.

The local schools on the list also include schools with a high percentage of students with disabilities such as the Children's Center for the Physically Handicapped, Carter Vocational High School and Hospital/Homebound.

Don Martin, the superintendent of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, said he doesn't always agree with the people at the Locke Foundation.

"This time, they probably have a point," Martin said. "I philosophically agree that a charter school and a public school ought to be treated the same."

Martin went on to make a point similar to Harrison's. With regular schools, he said, there is a system of intervention. "A school that is struggling, there is a whole progression of things," he said.

He suggested doing the same for a charter school.

Martin also said he thinks that there are better ways to measure how well a school is doing than the ones being used by the state board.

"I think that policy of the state board is a little too narrow," he said.

In defense of the regular schools, Martin pointed out that because people have to apply to attend a charter school, charter- school officials can choose not to take some students. Regular schools take everyone. If school officials at regular schools had the option of freely moving students from one school to another, Martin said, it would be possible to spread them out so that all schools in the system met the standards.

For him, there is a more-important issue to look at: "How well are we helping kids grow?" he said. "When they are not, we need to be responding."

kunderwood@wsjournal.com | 727-7389

On the list

These schools in Forsyth County would be closed if they were held to the same standards that the state will require of charter schools in the coming years:

• Ashley Elementary School.

• Carter Vocational High School.

• Carver High School.

• Children's Center.

• Easton Elementary School.

• Forest Park Elementary School.

• Hospital/Homebound Education Center.

• Kimberley Park Elementary School.

• Middle Fork Elementary School.

• North Forsyth High School.

• Parkland High School.

• Petree Elementary School.