Saving North Carolina’s Public Education System
How to Stop Those Who Would Betray the State’s Children and Future
As part of its work on public education in America, Civic Way is taking a closer look at one state—North Carolina. This is the ninth essay in Civic Way’s series on North Carolina’s primary and secondary education system (see the last essay). The author, Bob Melville, is the founder of Civic Way, a nonprofit dedicated to good government, and a management consultant with over 45 years of experience improving public agencies.
Unless there is accountability, we will never get the right system. – Albert Shanker
The Threats to North Carolina’s Public Education System
North Carolina’s public education crisis has many causes and symptoms. We will complete our presentation of these ills, and how they threaten the future of the public education system in the next few essays. This essay deals with accountability for public, charter and publicly-funded private schools.
Inconsistent Public Standards and Accountability.
We all want good, cost-effective government, but we cannot achieve this aim without accountability. The NCGA’s approach to educational accountability is inexplicable—some accountability for public schools, less for charter schools and nearly none for publicly funded private schools.
Accountability for Public Schools.
The state’s current A-F accountability system for tracking public school performance (including the North Carolina Dashboard) has some flaws. It grades elementary and middle schools using an 80-20 model (basing 80 percent of the score on state exam proficiency and 20 percent on student progress). It grades high schools using additional factors like graduation rates.
By emphasizing annual test scores, the system undervalues incremental progress. That is, it fails to credit schools—and students—making clear strides in improving historically low achievement levels. This failure is particularly unfair to low-income schools with energetic new leadership, dedicated staff and ascending academic programs. It also is unfair to disadvantaged students and their families.
Another problem is that North Carolina’s accountability system defies easy comparison to other states, and this limits its utility. To illustrate, according to the DPI, our internal state scores appear inconsistent with NAEP scores. DPI found that five southeastern states had better results than North Carolina based on each state’s internal grading system, but all except Florida had worse results on the NAEP tests[i].
Accountability for Charter Schools.
Unlike publicly funded private schools, charter schools have some public standards. For example, they cannot discriminate or charge tuition. However, charter schools operate under weaker standards than traditional public schools (e.g., academics, teachers and meals). Despite some alarming reports of charter school profiteering, self-dealing and fraud—like Charter One and Torchlight Academy—it can be extremely difficult for DPI or LEAs to intervene and transform (or close) public charter schools. Moreover, the state requires insufficient data from public charter schools to facilitate comparative performance assessments.
Accountability for Publicly Funded Schools.
There is virtually no public accountability for North Carolina’s publicly funded private schools. It is extremely hard for state or local governments—LEAs and counties—to detect (let alone prevent) mismanagement, misfeasance, abuse or fraud on the part of private OS voucher schools. To illustrate, one Johnston County school reportedly enrolled only half of the students for which it received vouchers (an estimated value of $230,000 according to the North Carolina Justice Center).
NCGA leaders offer empty rhetoric about the ability of parents to hold private schools accountable by voting with their feet—by moving their children elsewhere. Setting aside the obvious inanity of asking every family to move their children every time they encounter a problem, there is broader issue. Who should hold publicly funded schools accountable?
Surely, the state should have overall authority for enforcing public standards. Local government—both LEAs and counties—also should have some power to enforce public education standards and hold their local schools accountable. That is simply not the case today. The new budget ostensibly requires OS students in grades three+ to take standardized tests, but it remains unclear how private school and public-school performance will be compared, or the OS program’s effectiveness assessed.
Weak accountability standards for publicly funded private schools is incomprehensible—and reprehensible. Under the soon-to-be expanded OS voucher program, private and home schools will receive public subsidies with limited public standards, regulation and oversight. No ability to verify data (e.g., school accreditation, school finances, students, discipline or teacher credentials). Undue limits on the ability to publicly report student test scores.
Even states with universal voucher programs, like Florida, Iowa and Ohio, have more rigorous accountability standards than North Carolina. Even as their voucher programs face the same challenges facing North Carolina’s OS program, at least those states have demonstrated some grasp of how important it is to be faithful stewards of public tax dollars.
This evasion of accountability is not only bad practice, but a dangerous precedent. It will increase the prospects of waste and fraud[ii]. It will hinder the ability of state officials to learn what works and what doesn’t. It could ultimately discredit the very private schools with which NCGA leaders appear so enamored. In short, it is no less than an admission of failure on the eve of a revolution.
This essay presents the last of the major threats facing North Carolina’s public education system. In our next essay, we will discuss some trends that loom as additional barriers to reform. In subsequent essays, we will turn to some potential public education reform strategies.