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Raleigh, N.C. – The North Carolina State Board of Education today considered a policy that violates state law and threatens to withhold funding for new public charter schools.
Earlier this year, the N.C. General Assembly enacted a law establishing the Charter School Review Board. The law empowers that board to consider and approve applications for new public charter schools. That authority was previously split between the State Board of Education and the old Charter Schools Advisory Board.
The legislature enacted this law to streamline the approval process for new public charter schools by doing away with two separate layers of bureaucracy. In its place, the Charter School Review Board has power to approve new charter schools, and the State Board of Education has power to decide appeals.
But today, the State Board of Education considered a policy empowering itself to withhold state funds for new public charter schools approved by the Charter School Review Board.
Separating funding approval from school approval violates state law, which requires the State Board to provide funding to every charter school.
Lindalyn Kakadelis, executive director of the N.C. Coalition for Charter Schools, said, "North Carolina charter schools are enormously popular with families, as evidenced by the 77,000 names on charter school waitlists. The legislature streamlined the approval process for new public charter schools to meet this demand. The State Board of Education is wrong to play these bureaucratic power games when parents just want options in their public schooling."
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