NC Had 5th Highest Charter School Enrollment In Nation During Pandemic
By David Bass
Carolina Journal
A new report ranks North Carolina fifth in the nation for number of new charter school enrollments during the pandemic. The ranking is another feather in the cap for the Tar Heel State when it comes to the growth of school choice in recent years.
The report, produced by the National Alliance for Charter Schools, found that charter school enrollments jumped by 14,312 new students from the 2019-2020 school year to the 2021-2022 school year. That brought total enrollments from 118,597 students to 132,909 students, a 12% gain.
During that same period of time, enrollments in traditional public schools dipped by 48,283 students, a decrease the report deemed was ninth largest in the nation.
Contrary to arguments that charter schools are not diverse or even that they promote racial segregation in schools, the report noted that student enrollments for black students in North Carolina grew at the same pace as for white students. Enrollments for black students jumped by 14% during the pandemic, while enrollments for Hispanic students increased by 23%.
For the nation as a whole, charter enrollments grew by nearly 240,000 students during the pandemic, while traditional public school enrollments dipped by nearly 1.5 million students.
“These data make one thing clear: the COVID-19 pandemic has opened the eyes of parents and families to other possible options for their children’s education and with this new awareness they are making different choices,” wrote report authors Drew Jacobs and Debbie Veney. “In nearly every state, more families are choosing charter schools, homeschooling, and private school, while fewer are choosing district public schools.”
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13 Comments
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People want children educated…not indoctrinated and that is the current objective of public schools.
EXACTLY CORRECT Russell….I’m so glad my grandkids are not going to public schools anymore…when they took God out of the schools…look what happened….
well that was just one of the steps public education took and is taking to develop a perpetual victim class.
@Cinder God has not left the schools. He’s still there. It’s just the elected, appointed, and hired officials for the past decades have stopped listening to him. Maybe we are to blame also. I mean we let those officials get away with it year after year.
The NC Charter School Advisory Board (CSAB) also reported that 38% failed to meet academic growth goals. 67 schools rated as low-performing and continually low-performing. I’m all for ending public education in NC, but the current charter schools system is not much of an improvement. If parents cared about their children, they would home school them. It’s the only way to be sure!
Do you home school your children “Tell the truth”?
@NCGal: As a matter of fact, we did. We formed a collective with like-minded families to teach our children together. My grandchildren are being home-schooled as well. I suggest that anyone who cares about their children should check out NCHE to learn how.
Do both parents who home school your grandchildren work full time?
Our son and DIL work full time so our grandson goes to a public elementary school since neither one of his parents can afford to home school since both salaries are needed for them to live where they do.
It’s called sacrificing. We used to be a one income society and did with a whole lot less house, land, luxury than we do now. I used to think we couldn’t manage on one income but then Covid showed us that wasn’t true. We now live meagerly on one income and home school. Most 2 parent families can find a way if they truly wanted to.
@NCGal: You need to decide on what’s important to you. Life is about choices and sacrifices. If something is important enough, people find a way. It sounds like your son and DIL decided that living in a specific location is more important than home schooling.
Both our son and DIL must live where they do and are not in a position to transfer their jobs to another location. Their location is very expensive to live in, for example, the average home price is $620K.
The public school district where our son and DIL live is superb. Our grandson is being taught by excellent teachers and has access to fantastic resources that supplement his classroom experience. Our son and DIL determined that they would not be capable of providing that same level of education if they homeschooled.
Eog scores are not legitimate. To compare one grade test score to the next years is not accurate. They are two separate tests with different curriculum. The automatic promotion of students not at grade level just makes the matter worse. If they aren’t at grade level and then the child is promoted to the next what makes the education”experts” believe the child would grow? EOG’s are a political tool, not an educational or academic one.