Online charters: Court rightly provides precious oversight time

Editorial by Winston-Salem Journal, December 8, 2013.

The N.C. Court of Appeals has provided the General Assembly with precious time to fix an oversight in the state’s charter schools law. Legislators must not let this opportunity slip away.

The court ruled that a nonprofit organization backed by a for-profit education company did not have the right to open a charter school in the fall of 2012, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported. The organization planned to partner with the Cabarrus County Board of Education and the charter would have been available to students statewide.

From the start, the proposal’s legality was in question. The State Board of Education did not address the charter’s application, so proponents said they therefore had the right to open. A Superior Court judge disagreed, and the appellate court upheld that ruling.

The case highlighted a problem in current law. Legislators did not envision anything along the lines of this proposal, especially with the various proponents involved.

We do not know enough about the proposed school to speak to its merits, even though the idea piques our interest. We see some problems with the proposal and with online education, however, that the legislature must address in the spring.

As we just learned from an audit conducted on the N.C. Virtual Public School, administration of an online school varies significantly from that of a brick-and-mortar school. The legislature should establish a clear authority for what is expected in any online school.

Also, online education has proven effective at the collegiate level, and somewhat at the high school level. But, would it be effective with elementary school children? The state needs to have that discussion before approving an online charter.

Finally, under the arrangement envisioned in the just-rebuffed proposal, Cabarrus County would have received funds diverted from any county in which an online charter student resided, essentially giving Cabarrus school dollars that belonged to other counties. The justification for such a transfer isn’t clear. The legislature should address that issue.

The current legislature is enthusiastic about new charters, but that support cannot blind legislators to problems obvious in this online proposal.