CURMUDGUCATION: NC: Can Fed Money Get Charters To Accept Poor Students

CURMUDGUCATION: NC: Can Fed Money Get Charters To Accept Poor Students

NC: Can Fed Money Get Charters To Accept Poor Students

North Carolina's charter schools have some issues, such as draining resources from public schools and increasing segregation in a state that has not exactly set a high standard for de-segregation. White flight segregation academies are turning into charters, and they're also looking at district secession (white flight via redrawing school district boundaries).

But the federal government has awarded North Carolina a pile of money for-- well, here it's called "a statewide initiative to help meet the needs of educationally disadvantaged students" and here it's called "federal funding to help increase enrollment in charter schools, particularly for children from low-income groups" and here it's called "$36.6 million to increase the number of 'educationally disadvantaged students' attending charter schools."

You get the idea. Federal money is supposed to get charters to accept more poor students.

This is.... odd. If the whole point of charters is to give poor students the sort of choices that are available to wealthier families, why is it that North Carolina charters are apparently not providing those choices? "Economically disadvantaged students" (I love some good bureaucratic euphemisms) are the majority of the NC pub lic school population. In charters, they are 18.8%. It makes one wonder what the barrier might be, and why federal money is needed to breach it.

NC set up a whole program called ACCESS to award grants from the grant to "increase the EDS population in charter schools," and the applicants for the grant are required to show a variety of strategies, including a marketing and recruitment plan, a school climate plan, a transportation plan, and SMART goals including how the school will eliminate barriers. There's also a requirement for a CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: NC: Can Fed Money Get Charters To Accept Poor Students