Few schools in North Carolina have grown as quickly as Uwharrie Charter Academy. Since opening in 2013, Uwharrie has seen its enrollment jump from around 100 to nearly 1,800, making it one of the largest charter schools in the state.
As the lone charter in Asheboro, the school offers families a tuition-free, public alternative to nearby K-12 districts. Uwharrieemphasizes hands-on learning and includes several “flex days” for children to complete community service and internships. Students are also attracted by the school’s athletics programs and its catered lunch offerings of Chick-fil-A, Little Caesars and tacos.
The schoolhas a waitlist of 300 and anticipates upping its enrollment once moreas it breaks ground on a new high school this winter.
“We offer different opportunities for our kids,and our families are looking for something different,” Uwharrie Charter Academy Superintendent Sharon Castelli said.
Yet, while Uwharrie draws most of its students from the surrounding districts of Randolph County and Asheboro City, its student body looks sharply different.
In a city with a considerable Latino population, Latinos made up only 5% of Uwharrie's enrollment last year, five times below the rate across the two local districts. And while 60% of Randolph County and Asheboro City students were white, Uwharrie's student body was 85% white.
In recent years, the charter has also taught a lower percentage of economically disadvantaged students and students with disabilitiesthan the districts.
In June, top Republican officials gathered in Raleigh to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the state’s charter school law. Free of cost and independent from local school boards, charter schools have been a boon, the politicians proclaimed, for parents who desire more options for their children.
Since 1996, the number of North Carolina charters have grown from zero to more than 200, creating a whole new category of public school in the state. Last year, charters educated more than 127,000 students—roughly 8.5% of the state’s public-school students —and more are slated to open later this month.
Speaking from a podium at the anniversary event, N.C. Senate leader Phil Berger declared: “Real school choice should be available to all, not restricted only to the elite who can afford it.”
However, many question whether all charters schools are actually available to all.
While some North Carolina charters specifically focus on teaching Black and Latino students from lower-income families, state data shows North Carolina charter schools tend to be whiter, wealthier, and teach fewer students with special needs than traditional public school districts.
- In the 2018-19 school year, 55% of district students were low-income compared to 41% of charter students.
- Last year, district schools were 45% white compared to 51% in charters.
- According to the most recent state data, 13.5% of district students had special needs compared to 10.5% of charter students.
In certain areas of the state, the differences are more pronounced:
- Each of thefour charters in Alamance County had a whiteenrollment between 20% to 45% higher than in the Alamance-Burlington School System. And while more than 60% of ABSS students qualify as low-income, none of the Alamance charters taught more than 30% of low-income students during the 2018-19 school year.
- Around 35% of students at Piedmont Community Charter School —the state’s 5th largest charter school —qualified as low-income during the 2018-19 school year while therate at the surrounding Gaston County Schools is approximately 65%.
- At each of thefour charters withinthe Buncombe County Schools district, white enrollment isat least 13% higher than in the district, and the low-income percentage is at least 10% below the district's overall rate.
Charter leaders say increased funding and greater outreach can narrow these demographic divides, affording students from all socio-economic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds the benefits of their schools.
But seeing these gaps persist in many counties, some question whether North Carolina charters —after 25 years —are trying hard enough to provide opportunitiesfor allin their local communities.
White flightor right fit?
WhenNorth Carolina charters began a quarter century ago, they disproportionately served Black and lower-income students saidHelen Ladd, an emerita professor of public policy at Duke University. But this changed, Ladd noted, as more white families grew dissatisfied with their local districts.
“White parents, as they were leaving traditional public schools to go to charter schools, it was pretty clear that they were looking for whiter schools,” she said.
Some allege North Carolina charters spark “white flight,”a historically charged term with ties to the era ofschool desegregation. While Ladd doesn’t agree with this blanket label for charters, she said “many serve that function.”
For example, Asheboro City Schools has lost nearly a third of its white students since Uwharrie opened while Randolph County Schools has seen its white population drop by a quarter. These trends existed before the charter —and families leave districts for various reasons —but the exodus of white studentsaccelerated after Uwharrie arrived.
Initially, North Carolina legislators capped the number of charter schools statewide at 100, but the number has more than doubled since the North Carolina General Assembly lifted the cap in2011.
Charters are publicly funded but run by independent boards. They must follow state standards and are available to any student in the state. If the number of applicants exceeds the number of open seats, a charter settles its enrollment via a lottery.
To distinguish themselves, charters often emphases the unique aspects in their curriculum like art integration, inquiry-based learning, leadership, orclosingthe achievement gap.
North Carolina law states charters should “make efforts for the population of the school to reasonably reflect the ethnic and racial composition” of the general population within their local school district, a target many charters currently aren’t meeting. Many agree these disparities get perpetuated by the absence of two services: transportation and food.
Unlike district schools, North Carolina doesn’t mandate charters provide students with daily transportation and meals. In 2020, a little more than half provided bus transportation and less than half offered reduced-price lunches.
Without these services, families with fewer resources may be deterred from enrolling.
“I definitely agree that the free lunches are a big, big help,” said Luz Marcelo, whose son attends a traditional district school in Asheboro.
Amber Valentino, a parent in east Asheville, said it’d be a challenge getting her daughter to and from a charter each day without buses. She's heard promising things about the local charter school ArtSpace, but she said the school’s lack of full transportation would give her pause as a working mom.
Charter leaders point out that their schools’ smaller economies of scale and unequal funding make it difficult to fund bus routes and operate lunch programs. Though charter schools receive the same per-pupil funding from the state, they get less funding for capital projects like buildings, buses and food contracts. And though some charters are bigger than traditional school districts, most have smaller enrollments —and therefore smaller budgets.
“I’ve worked in a lot of different states and the budget is so tight here, it’s crazy,” said Danielle View, director of the Cape Fear Center for Inquiry in Wilmington, which doesn’t provide transportation ormeals. “It’s not like you’re choosing between luxuries. You’re choosing between essential things.”
Related coverage:Accessibility seen as a barrier to racial, economic diversity in area charter schools.
Feud over federal funding
In 2018, North Carolina was one of eight states selected by then-U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy Devos to receive federal funding to enhance access to charter schools. In the past three years, the NC Access Program has awarded a combined $30 million to 60 charter schools —about 30% of the state’s total.
Recipients pledged to implement weighted admission lotteriesthat favor low-income students while using the money to expand services for children deemed educationally disadvantaged due to factors like their families’ income, their special needs, or their English proficiency.
“I believe it’s our obligation, our responsibility, and our job as a public education institution to provide a quality education for all students in our community, said Sean Vervain, the exceptional children coordinator at IC Imagine in Asheville. With portions of its $600,000 ACCESS grant, the school purchased a new accessible playground and plans to add six additional buses for daily transport.
The federal money has already increased the diversity of grant-recipient schools said Dave Machado, director of the North Carolina Office of CharterSchools. But others argue many of the schools receiving this additional fundingstill aren’t proposing to teach the same number of low-income students as their district counterparts.
In their grant applications, many of the charters said they hoped to teach more economically disadvantaged students, but the levels they proposed still often fell below the low-income rates of their district.
“If they’re truly public schools, they should reflect the public-school community,” said Natalie Beyer of Public Schools First NC, a non-profit advocacy group in Raleigh. “I don’t think the 25th anniversary (of the charter school law) is anything to celebrate. It’s really a time to actually pause and say, ‘What are we doing right and what can we do better in a policy sense for the students in North Carolina?”
In June, Public Schools First NC joined dozens of organizations from across the country to call on current U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona to either cut back or end his predecessor’s charter school grant program. In a letter to Cardona, the groups accused many charters of serving “as white-flight alternatives to the local public schools.”
The letter also panned some charter schools for making parentscomplete a certain number of volunteer hours, which can deter lower-income families that lack the time or transportation to help out at school events.
Whether or not the federal grants continue, some say the solution to increasing equity in North Carolina charter schools must come from North Carolina itself.
Other states mandate charter schools offer transportation and nutrition plans noted Lindsay Wagner, a researcher at the Raleigh-based think tank Public Schools Forum of North Carolina. Wagner says her state must follow suit if it wishes to achieve “real system-level change” across its ever-growing number of charters.
More:N.C. private, charter schools reap millions in PPP loans
'We're attractive to all students'
Despite having an enrollment that’s wealthier and whiter than its local districts, Uwharrie is a school available for everyone, said Castelli. Any “white flight” labels levied at charters, she said, shouldn’t apply to her charter.
“We're attractive to all students to be quite honest with you,” she said. “Unfortunately, it's sad if there’s the perception (otherwise), but it's not the case.”
Uwharrie hasn’t applied for an NC ACCESS grant, but Castelli said her school provides rides for students without transportation and covers the cost of daily lunches ($5) for lower-income students. Noting Uwharrie has a Spanish interpreter to help with community outreach, she believes educating more residents about charter will eventually lead to more students from different backgrounds.
“The most difficult issue we have is changing the mindset of people believing we are a private school and not a free public school,” Castelli said.
A state representative from neighboring Alamance County, Ricky Hurtado agrees outreach is the key to charters building bridges to Latino communities, but Hurtado, the only Latino member of the General Assembly, hasn’t seen charters put in this effort.
“There's just a general lack of awareness about charter schools and what they are and how you even apply to them,” he said. “I think that's in large part because of the lack of outreach to the community.
Hurtado views area charters as “white flight” institutions and doesn’t see that changing until state and charter officials step up to putmore informational materials into Spanish, get out into more communities, and give charters both a mandate and the necessary funding to offer transportation, meals, and in-school support to more diverse students.
Since COVID-19, Hurtado has heard parents of all backgrounds be more open to trying new schools for their children. "I think the conversation in our community is much louder now," he said.
But as for whether more charters will become a viableoption for everyone, Hurtado remains doubtful.
More:This Asheville school demolished the race-based achievement gap. What happened to it?
Brian Gordon is a statewide reporter with the USA Today Networkin North Carolina. Reach him at bgordon@gannett.com or on Twitter @briansamuel92.
