Charter schools group corrects the record on Cooper veto

A pro-charter schools group in North Carolina is calling out Gov. Roy Cooper for factual errors in his veto message of a new charter schools bill.

The N.C. Association of Charter Schools put out a press release on July 24 on Cooper’s veto of House Bill 219, Charter School Omnibus. The measure would open the door for more expansions of charter schools across the state, including giving the schools the option to request capital construction funding from their local school district.

Meanwhile, in his veto message, Cooper claims the bill would allow “more students to attend failing charter schools,” risking “their education and their future.” Cooper specifically took aim at a provision in the bill on low-performing charters: “North Carolina should continue to cap the enrollment growth of low-performing charter schools until they can show that they improve student achievement.”

The N.C. Association of Charter Schools countered by pointing out that H.B. 219 “explicitly requires caps for low-performing charter schools. It doesn’t eliminate them … the bill only removes enrollment caps for public charter schools that aren’t low-performing because there were more than 77,000 student names on waitlists for North Carolina public charter schools for the 2022-23 school year.”

Cooper also objected to the provision of the bill that he claimed would “divert local resources to build charter schools without clear authority on who owns them risks financial loss to county taxpayers.”

But the N.C. Association of Charter Schools countered that the assets of closed charter schools go to the county. According to state general statutes, “Upon dissolution of a charter school, all net assets of the charter school purchased with public funds shall be deemed the property of the local school administrative unit in which the charter school is located.”

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