news-record.com

In today’s Washington Watch column (posted here) I give a quick rundown of remarks by U.S. Sec. of Education Arne Duncan at the Institute for Emerging Issues forum here in Raleigh. Duncan was snow-bound in Washington, D.C. so appeared by video conference.

On part of Duncan’s session caught my ear. He was asked whether North Carolina’s “Race to the Top” application (background) might be frustrated by the state’s charter school laws, which limit the number of charters in the state. The Obama administration has pointed to charters as a key way schools can innovate.

In a previous post (click here) I’ve noted that charter school advocates have gone so far as to say North Carolina’s Race to the Top application should be rejected. In response to a question, Duncan said that wasn’t so. From the column:

“I think your state has done a great job,” Duncan said. “Good charter schools are a piece of the answer, bad charter schools are a piece of the problem. What we want is more innovation. So charter schools are one way to innovate. You can have traditional schools that are highly innovative, magnet programs, gifted programs, you name it. Charters don’t begin to have the monopoly on innovation.”

Gov. Bev Perdue has been saying for months that the charter school law would not be an impediment. After giving her own talk at IEI Monday, Perdue had this to say:

“Charter schools (are) not the end all and be all. We have proven to the Dept of Education that where we now have 100-plus charters, many other states that have adopted charters in the last year have as few as 30 or 40. We also have had deep discussions with the secretary and his team about the innovations that go on in North Carolina and he’s been impressed with that … So, they have really adapted to the thinking that innovation does not necessarily go by the name of charters. And we are only state, I believe, in America … to have 100 percent collaborations between all of the universities, the community colleges and all the public schools leaders.”

NB: North Carolina does NOT have “100-plus” charter schools. The number of charters is capped at 100 and rarely, if ever, hits that mark due to the turnover in charters as some close and new ones take time to open.

Click below for Duncan’s 25 minutes at IEI, which includes both his prepared remarks and Q&A. The question about charters comes at the 12:30 mark.