Opinion: North Carolina should not expand charter schools

Free public education is a core value in the United States. It is one of the essential achievements of this country and has been seen as a right for almost a century. However, the charter school system has exploited the public and hindered traditional public schools from reaching their full potential.

New charter schools are being built in North Carolina. When they open, they are exempt from government standards, are allowed to pick as many or as few students as they want and do not have to provide transportation to students.

Charters perpetuate segregation, cater to affluent white communities and drain money from local public schools in the process.

The charter school system should not be expanded until the state can ensure it does not rob public schools, low-income areas and minority communities of both tax money and educational opportunities.

Arguments against charters have persisted since the schools first appeared in North Carolina in 1996, but a recent article by UNC law professor Thomas Kelley III found that some charters have been violating North Carolina nonprofit law by betraying their role as “charitable organizations” and defrauding taxpayers. The article also suggests that for-profit holding companies, like Roger Bacon Academy, are making large profits from owning schools.

Essentially for-profit schools should not be allowed to receive scarce state resources.

Charter school systems in other states have had problems that should make North Carolina policymakers skeptical.

In 2014 the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program senior staff attorney Courtney Bowie said about the charter system in Delaware, “Students of color and students with disabilities are not getting an equal chance to attend many of the high-performing charter schools.”

Even the highly-regarded Success Academy in New York has been charged with discriminating against students with behavioral problems to boost the appearance of success. The New York Times reported that students in grade levels as low as kindergarten were targeted for removal due to behavioral problems.

Instead of dealing with problems and helping kids, one of the charter schools touted as a standard-bearer has abandoned students who do not conform to absurd standards.

Legislators have a responsibility to hold charter schools accountable. Parents have a responsibility to make sure their understandable desire to ensure the best possible education for their own children doesn’t hinder opportunities for others. Everyone has a responsibility to protect accessible education.

If the problems with charter schools don’t make their very existence problematic, the state should stop their spread until it redefines what it means to be a nonprofit and what it means to be an equal-opportunity, publicly-funded institute.