Public is public
Published June 14, 2014
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, June 14, 2014.
Charter schools are public schools. That means they should be accountable to the public.
That came into question earlier this year when The Charlotte Observer asked Mecklenburg County charter schools to provide salary information. Some balked. After initial confusion, state education officials said the information was public and the schools had to release it.
Why not? Salaries for superintendents, principals and teachers in traditional school systems are public. And for good reason: How much we should pay educators has become one the most-discussed public policy questions of the year in North Carolina.
Since that kerfuffle, a state Senate bill reforming the process for approving charter schools added a provision to clear up uncertainty. It declared that charter schools and the boards of directors of the private, nonprofit corporations that operate charter schools are subject to the state’s open meetings and public records laws.
That makes sense, because they are operating with tax dollars. The state appropriated more than $300 million to charter schools this year, and counties kick in more. In Guilford County, the amount was more than $8 million — the same $2,332 per student enrolled in charter schools as for traditional schools.
So it set off alarms when that provision was in danger of removal by the Senate Education Committee. Fortunately, it finally was included in the bill approved by the committee on Wednesday. “Whether it’s in or out makes no difference,” Chairman Jerry Tillman, a Republican from Randolph County, told The Charlotte Observer. “The law is clear: All public schools must disclose.”
The law needed to be more clear, because some schools were still withholding some salary information. The full Senate, and then the House, should stress the point by passing this legislation this session.
Charter schools already operate too much like private schools. They can be run by for-profit companies, and many are. Their boards of directors are not elected, and local school boards — which are elected by the public — are given no oversight over charter schools and how they spend their public funds. Excusing these schools from open meetings and open records laws would make matters worse.
What’s important to know? Salaries, for one thing. Also, things like admissions and discipline policies.
Academic data, including annual test schools and class sizes, are reported. They give parents helpful information for selecting a school. Most charters are forthcoming about how they operate and certainly have nothing to hide. But, to be sure, it ought to be clear what requirements they must follow. Those include opening financial records and directors’ meetings to the public.
Charter schools are meant to be innovative, providing fresh alternatives to traditional schools. But as long as they receive public money, they must be accountable to the public.
June 14, 2014 at 11:19 am
Richard Bunce says:
Which is why the voucher program must be converted to a means tested pre-refundable tax credit like the ACA Marketplace premium tax credit/subsidy so that when parents use the voucher in an alternate school system it will no longer be public funds and the government education industrial complex vouchers will not use that to kill any alternate to their government school system creation.
