Editorial: A double standard?

Setting high standards for charter schools is good, but setting double standards isn't, especially when it comes to statewide education policy. As state education officials revise their rules governing charters, they need to make sure their efforts don't stumble in the latter direction.

Under recent changes, charter schools can lose their state charter if, in two of three years, students do not learn as much as expected and if fewer than 60 percent score at or above grade level on standardized tests. The new policy came amid continuing debate over whether the state should lift its current limit of 100 charter schools statewide. Charter advocates, including the Obama administration, support the creation of more of the schools, which receive public funding but are exempt from some state and local regulations. State education leaders, including Gov. Beverly Perdue, have resisted raising the limit, saying there needs to be more focus on identifying innovative schools that consistently raise student performance, while weeding out charters that don't meet more rigorous criteria.

All schools need to be held to high standards, but should charter schools face the threat of closure when other similarly performing schools don't? Jack Moyer, head of the state charter school organization, said that if the new rules had taken effect in 2007, seven charter schools would have been forced to close. But here's where it gets interesting: According to a study by the John Locke Foundation, if you applied the new charter policy to all public schools statewide, more than 150 schools would be forced to close, including four in the Rowan-Salisbury district.

Before rushing to attack the Locke findings, however, please note: The report doesn't advocate the closing of those conventional schools or attack them as failures. The conservative-leaning foundation did the analysis to buttress the argument that the revised regulations place an undue burden on charter schools by subjecting them to a punitive measure that isn't imposed on other N.C. district schools. In addition to questioning the regulatory disparity, the report also recommends that, rather than basing closure decisions purely on statistical data, state officials should factor in feedback from school personnel, parents and the community.

State officials say they aren't trying to stifle the charter movement. They just want to see new ideas and more innovative thinking. Sounds good — but if the threat of closure actually helps bring that about, it just raises the question anew: Why not expand the policy to all schools?