Jun 30, 2012
Judge rules that Virtual Charter School Can’t Open
N.C. Virtual Academy needs state approval
A Wake County judge ruled Friday that a controversial charter school that planned to offer only online classes cannot open in August. The decision could delay the launch of any similar programs for at least a couple of years.
The Cabarrus County school board, which approved the proposal 5-2 in February, “is not experienced in, nor equipped as the State Board of Education, with the staff and know-how to review, evaluate, and approve the application of a charter school designed to serve a statewide clientele, nor is it authorized to give final approval for such operation,” (Superior Court Judge) Jones said in his order.
Under the state’s current educational funding formula, local school districts must give thousands of dollars to charters educating children who otherwise would have been enrolled in public schools. Because an online charter school might have appeal to parents who want to educate their children at home, the proposal also could have meant that the local districts would have had to start paying for home-schooled children.
“As a state, we have responsibility for all our children,” Harrison (chairman of the state school board) said.
Cabarrus County was the only school district that supported the idea. Eighty-nine of North Carolina’s 115 public school districts joined under the umbrella of the N.C. School Boards Association to bolster the state Board of Education’s legal challenge of the online charter.
To read more about how virtual charter school movement has been stopped in its tracks–and learn from this example how to stop it from happening wherever you are, please click here
Jun 30, 2012 @ 17:57:15
From Raleigh, Wake County, NC, where ALEC, the Koch Brothers, and the Tea Party already tried to turn back the clock on public education, returning the County’s schools to segregation as part of their concept of “school choice”. “School choice” is a term that brings back memories of the battles won years ago to end racial segregation in the public schools. Now the term is being used as per the views of ALEC’s task force on education to mean that parents have the right to send their kids to the school of their choice–public or private, charter or virtual, home-schooled, religious or secular. The result was already returning Wake County schools to segregation when the most recent election for school board turned out “school choice” advocates and replaced them with people committed to the public school system.