Tag

Carolina Journal Archives - North Carolina Coalition for Charter Schools

Sep 03
Love0

Report: Widespread school choice impacts charter enrollment

By News

A new report from the American Enterprise Institute sheds light on the future of the charter sector amid broader school choice expansion. The report, authored by Ian Kingsbury and David Marshall, includes survey data from 285 charter leaders in Arizona, Utah, and Florida. Each of these three states has a well-established and universal ESA (Education Savings Account) program.

School choice expansion, charter leaders said, has ushered in negative enrollment impacts for charter schools. And they expect more is coming.

Titled “The Future of Charter Schools in an Evolving School Choice Landscape,” the report indicates these states each had “robust” charter sectors when lawmakers passed ESAs.  They therefore “represent ideal case studies” for evaluating impacts of widespread choice on charter schools.

North Carolina is not included in the report. School choice expansion here includes an ESA+ Program for students with disabilities and a universal voucher (Opportunity Scholarship). Lawmakers removed income limits on the voucher in 2023.

Key findings from the report:

  • Nearly half of respondents reported enrollment losses due to students using an ESA for noncharter options (e.g., private school tuition or subsidized homeschooling), and nearly the same proportion anticipated a future decline in total enrollment. Enrollment impacts were most pronounced in Arizona.

  • Respondents reported a growing perception that private and microschool models now offer superior flexibility and autonomy.

  • The evidence offers a warning: Charter schools, long celebrated for innovation and choice, risk marginalization unless they undergo a fundamental shift away from a system-centric approach toward a parent-centric model.

Here is the breakdown of charter enrollment impacts:

The need to ‘modernize’ the charter sector

Charter school leaders also said laws should be updated to “modernize” the sector. Regulation and funding topped the list of areas that warranted change.

  • 65% cited the reduction of regulation and bureaucracy.
  • 58% referenced funding equity and facilities support.
  • 42% proposed relief around special education and compliance.

Here’s the table outlining responses:

Read more about the report from Carolina Journal or AEI.

Shutterstock photo above.

Sep 22
Love0

New Carolina Journal poll: A majority of North Carolinians want increased K-12 funding

By News

Carolina Journal on Thursday released a new statewide poll of likely North Carolina voters, finding a majority want lawmakers to prioritize increased funding for K-12 public schools in a mini-budget this fall.

The poll focused mostly on political issues and views. However, pollsters also asked a specific question about pandemic learning, finding nearly 86% of voters are concerned about long-lasting effects on student achievement.

Here’s more from CJ:

The North Carolina General Assembly adjourned for the summer without approving a budget. When asked to select the two areas that would be a top priority for increased funding, a majority (54.4%) selected K-12 public schools, while 44.6% chose Medicaid/healthcare, 35% chose public safety, 17.9% chose economic development incentives, 8% chose something else, 6.3% chose transportation, 6% chose the savings reserve or rainy-day fund, 3% chose Opportunities Scholarship/Education Savings Accounts, and 3% said they were unsure.

With a majority of voters expressing a desire to increase funding for public K-12 schools, it is noteworthy that 85.8% of voters expressed concern about the long-term impacts of the pandemic on student achievement.

The CJ poll queried 600 likely North Carolina voters on September 14-15, 2025. See the full poll results here.

Here are the poll questions with educational impacts:

Screenshots from “The Carolina Journal Poll: Survey of Likely 2026 General Election Voters,” conducted September 14-15, 2025.

Above left: Shutterstock photo.

May 13
Love0

Dave Machado op-ed: The power of innovation and choice in education

By News

Coalition Executive Director Dave Machado has a new Carolina Journal op-ed out for National Charter Schools Week about the power of innovation and choice in education. K-12 education today faces complex problems, but empowering parents and experimentation can provide a “path through the chaos,” he writes.

Here’s an excerpt from his article:

Scanning through the education policy and political headlines is an exercise in chaos.

“Early stats don’t support school cellphone bans.” “Want high schoolers to read books?” “Preventing hazing is harder than you think.” “Is your online student a bot?” “Stop generation Alpha’s brain rot.”

It’s a litany of problems with precious few solutions, and the solutions that do make it into the mix face immediate second-guessing. It’s apparent to me that no single authority can possibly resolve all of the problems plaguing K-12 education today. And even if that authority somehow did exist, nobody would believe them anyway.

With no obvious national policy solution to stuttering national test scores and literacy rates, it seems clear that experimentation — together with empowering parents to choose among an array of schools with different teaching and curriculum styles — is the best path through the chaos.

There are three reasons for this. First, and most obviously, children are not all alike and they never have been. Some learn best in strict, highly predictable environments; others flourish in less structured, Montessori-style settings. This is obvious even for very young children, which explains the multitude of preschool philosophies from which parents can choose. Bizarrely, granting parents an array of choices for preschool is not controversial, but granting them the same array of choices for K-12 school is controversial.

Pressing all K-12 students into the same educational environment may have made good sense when the option was simply school or no school. But that’s no longer the case and hasn’t been for many years. Parents deserve options for their children’s schooling because not all children flourish in the same environment, and the more options the better.

Read the rest of the article on Carolina Journal.

Aug 26
Love0

NC charters: ‘Demand like never before’

By News

Shutterstock photo.

North Carolina’s rapidly growing charter sector has garnered some media attention lately. In case you missed it, the Coalition compiled comments and coverage in a press release last week.

From the Coalition’s release:

… Carolina Journal published a story (“NC charter schools remain fastest growing K-12 segment”) with insights from a public charter school parent: “[My wife and I] saw increased parent engagement, which helped them to be more involved [with] their kids’ learning,” Jerry Cooper, a father of two from Raleigh, told the outlet. “We also found charters to be deeply connected to the community.”

… The News & Observer published a story about strong demand for public charter school facilities: “Statewide, charter school enrollment is expected to eclipse 145,000 students this year, according to the state Department of Public Instruction, as several schools are expanding to accommodate some of the more than 85,000 students on waiting lists. . .’There is demand like never before,’ said Bartley Danielsen, a member of the Charter [Schools] Review Board.”

Lindalyn Kakadelis, executive director of the N.C. Coalition for Charter Schools, said,

Public charter schools continue to surge in popularity, complementing traditional public schools by offering innovative curricula enabling students to specialize in certain fields. Charter schools are a successful piece of the school choice landscape because of the flexibility afforded them by legislators.

In 2023-24, charter school waitlists included over 85,000 students across North Carolina.  

Jan 26
Love0

Lindalyn Kakadelis Weighs in on Parent Choice in Education

By News

Photo credit: National School Choice Awareness Foundation.

Coalition Executive Director Lindalyn Kakadelis has a new op-ed out today in Carolina Journal. The editorial, which highlights the fundamental importance of parent choice in education, coincides with celebrations across the nation this week for National School Choice Week (NSCW).

Here’s an excerpt from Lindalyn’s new commentary:

I have a feeling most people involved in education policy intuitively accept the conclusion that parents should be the final word on what’s best for their child. But I also believe some don’t really understand its implications. You see, if we accept as our guiding principle that final authority rests with parents, then the answer to many of the debates roiling education policy becomes patently obvious.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the debate over school choice. Should all children have one schooling option, determined by a family’s address? Or should children have multiple schooling options, determined by parents and based on what they think is best?

If our guiding principle is that final word rests with parents, then it stands to reason parents should have options for where to send their children to school — and the more options the better. In this way, the public school system supports, rather than supplants, a parent’s decision-making by offering an array of options for parents to choose from.

That’s what public charter schools offer: another option, often with a curricular concentration, such as STEM or the arts or even a classical focus.

Read the rest of Lindalyn’s editorial here. In addition, if you missed it, you can view the winning video from the Coalition’s dance video contest for NSCW here. It showcases the dance moves of students and faculty from Community Public Charter School. Read more about the winning video in this Coalition blog post.