Earlier today, Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina (PEFNC) issued a press release in response to a charter school study released earlier this week by Helen Ladd, Charles Clotfelter, and John Holbein of Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.
Here is an excerpt of the Duke study published at EdNC.org this morning. The full paper is available as a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) paper.
Here is the PEFNC full press release.
In the press release, Darrell Allison, President of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, says that public charter schools enroll a greater percentage of black students than traditional schools. In 2013-14, 30 percent of students enrolled in charter schools were black as compared to 26 percent in traditional public schools, according to the Annual Charter School Report to the N.C. General Assembly.
Allison notes the growth of leaders of color running public charter schools. He says, “Of the 54 public charter schools that have opened in North Carolina since the cap was eliminated, 33 percent of them are being led by a black principal. In fact, our organization through the North Carolina Public Charter School Accelerator assisted two African-American females to start public charter schools in both Bertie and Halifax County – the very first public charter school for each of these counties.”
Allison says families – both black and white – are searching for better school options for their children, and public charter schools are meeting that demand.
“We are also seeing more and more high-quality public charter schools emerge that serve to meet the needs of low-income students by providing transportation and school lunches – both of which charter school critics often cite as barriers that keep low-income children from attending high-performing public charter schools,” says Allison.
He concludes, “what I honestly believe is that we have both white parents and black parents aggressively utilizing various school choice options in order to find schools that will best educate their children. For them, the only race they are concerned about is their child racing to the top of their class and no longer lagging behind.”
