Tagged: charter schools

Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, private and charter schools don’t have much of a history of working together.  But CMS Superintendent Heath Morrison wants that to change. 

A few weeks ago, Charlotte Catholic High School principal Jerry Healy got an invitation from CMS.  The district wanted to meet with private and charter schools to talk about ways to collaborate.  He was surprised.  

“The agendas don’t seem to really match and in the past we’ve probably been looked on as the adversary, the people that are pulling our kids away,” says Healy. 

The state advisory council which monitors charter schools has decided to give Kennedy Charter in south Charlotte another chance, despite the school’s low test scores.  That decision hinges on a plan to move the school to the campus of Johnson C. Smith University. 

Every few years, charter schools in North Carolina have to go before a group of charter school administrators, board members, and educators.  They have to make their case for why they should be allowed to continue to operate. 

We’ve heard a lot of success stories from charter school advocates as they’ve tried to gain support for them. But not all charter schools provide a good education and a leading charter school advocate is the first to admit that. In fact, he’s now pushing for states to close more charter schools. Greg Richmond is the director of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. He says up to 1,300 charter schools in the country are failing their students, including a few in North Carolina.

This week on Morning Edition, WFAE’s Lisa Miller took a look at the charter school movement. We will be seeing a lot more of those because the legislature has lifted a cap that had limited the state to 100 charter schools. Now, 25 are getting ready to open next year. Seven of them are in the Charlotte area.