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NC charter school association in jeopardy

Submitted by scharrison on Tue, 02/21/2012 - 11:07am

Financial troubles are just over the horizon:

Former State Auditor Les Merritt is joining the board of directors at the N.C. Alliance for Public Charter Schools. The Zebulon CPA will serve as the organization's treasurer, the alliance's president, Paul Norcross, announced.

To which the Chairman of the Board sighed, "Dammit Paul, I said we needed merit, not Merritt."

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Comments

I guess now that Tillis & friends

Submitted by scharrison on Tue, 02/21/2012 - 11:17am.

are in charge, that "safeguarding against public corruption" is no longer a popular meme...

Cooking books

Submitted by James on Tue, 02/21/2012 - 11:23am.

I've watched Merritt for years and he appears to be little more than a useful tool with a big ego.

In this case, I'm sure his agenda includes helping the "school" find low-risk strategies to scam taxpayers. In Merritt's brave new world of free-markets unleashed, shareholders will get rich by bellying up to the public trough.

Rich guys win at the expense of poor people ... again!

Look for this sort of thing coming soon to a charter school scam near you.

NC charter school oversight sucks

Submitted by James on Tue, 02/21/2012 - 2:57pm.

Accountability only matters when the recipient of taxpayer funds is a public entity. When it's a private company scamming the system for fun and profit, no worries.

While it is true that competition for enrolled students creates market accountability driven by parental school choice, the state has not done enough to enforce its own standards of accountability. In fourteen years, North Carolina has closed schools a total of 27 charter schools due to low enrollment, mismanagement, financial insolvency, and legal issues. The state has not, to date, proactively closed a school failing to meet academic achievement requirements. NC has also failed to close any charter school for not having a student population “representative of the community it serves,” a requirement set forth in NC charter policies.