Backers of lifting state cap arrange event at Carter

By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- Advocates for raising the state's cap on the number of charter schools arranged a tour of one of the city's more successful such schools Wednesday morning for two local legislators.

The tour brought state Reps. Paul Luebke, D-Durham, and Winkie Wilkins, D-Person, to the Carter Community Charter School in the Walltown neighborhood.

The two visited several classrooms and then sat down for a briefing by Carter's principal, Gail Scott Taylor, three parents and three students.

Taylor noted that Carter's all-minority student body had done well in state end-of-grade tests in the 2008-09 school year, with 64 percent performing at or above grade level in reading and nearly 83 percent in math.

Parents and students, meanwhile, said Carter's small class sizes make it an attractive option, especially for families worried about how their children will handle middle school.

"The negative attributes that you get from schooling in large public schools -- the fighting and all that that you're terrified to send your kids to school -- is not here at Carter," said Kandicia Fudge, who has two children attending classes there. "I mean, it is no-nonsense. There is no fighting."

The briefers also stressed that the Carter school relies on strong relationships with key players in Durham -- particularly the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership.

The partnership's leader, Duke University Assistant Vice President for Community Affairs Michael Palmer, is the vice chairman of the school's board.

He attended Wednesday's tour and briefing and told the legislators Duke got involved at a low point in the school's fortunes because it was "critical to have positive activity" in the building it uses on West Club Boulevard.

The "substantial progress" that has occurred at Carter since 2004 and Taylor's arrival "has helped enlighten my view of charters, in the sense that small is good," Palmer said.

Wednesday's tour was arranged by Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, a Raleigh advocacy group that supports charter schools, tax credits, home-schooling and other options it believes boost parental choice.

The group's president, Darrell Allison, acknowledged that it's mounted tours for legislators in other parts of the state and said it's looking for allies in the General Assembly, at the N.C. Department of Public Instruction and in the governor's office.

It and other charter-school advocates are eager to see action on the 100-school cap on charters, subsidies for charters' capital costs and "fairer, more reasonable and more understandable" administrative regulations, Allison said.

Luebke and Wilkins voted last year for a bill now pending in the state Senate that would raise the cap to 106 and instruct the State Board of Education to give priority to applications from counties that now lack charter schools.

Wilkins said a look at the map shows the state has "pockets of charters," including in this area, rather than an effort broadly anchored in all 100 counties.

The Person County legislator -- whose district also covers much of northern Durham County -- also signaled that he favors offering charter schools capital subsidies, perhaps including a share of the proceeds of the state lottery.

Legislative studies have found there's a case for such aid, but getting that through the General Assembly is "a hard battle," Wilkins said, adding that he'd had to "back away" from the issue for lack of support from his colleagues.

Luebke stayed for only part of the briefing. But in an interview as he was leaving for another meeting, he praised the work of Carter's staff, students and parents.

"This is an outstanding school," he said. "It's very impressive in what they're achieving."

But he said "the issue of course" is whether charters elsewhere have produced the same kinds of results, said Luebke, whose district covers Duke, Walltown and much of western Durham.

Carter's success, in isolation, "doesn't for me answer the question of whether there ought to be an expansion in the number of" charters, Luebke said.