Pay flexibility and public scrutiny

Forget, for a moment, the legal questions about public disclosure of charter salaries.  Richard Vinroot and Eddie Goodall,  local leaders in North Carolina's charter school movement,  have raised the argument that pay flexibility makes it essential to protect teacher salaries from disclosure  --  to their colleagues.

"Common sense suggests that we value the delicate balance by which charter operators and employees, who together, negotiate just the appropriate wage to satisfy each other,"  Goodall,  head of the N.C. Public Charter School Association,  wrote recently.  "Charters don’t mind if the public knows what everybody makes!  They only care about the third grade teacher, Tim, learning what Sally, the other third grade teacher, is making. The whole issue is about poisoning the chemistry of the charter team, adding an ingredient that might alter the flavor of the whole dish."

Vinroot contends that performance-based pay,  unlike that of teachers on a traditional salary schedule,  would cause disruption in two charter schools he works with if colleagues knew each other's pay.

Bertrand: Performance pay does create pressure ...

It's true that on the state pay scale,  you can figure out what your colleagues make if you know how many years they've worked and what kind of credentials they hold.  That locked-in schedule evolved from a time when pay discrepancies were often based on gender and race.  Some experts call it a good solution to yesterday's problems.

Charters are hardly alone in seeking better options.  The quest for a smarter teacher pay system is a national obsession,  with North Carolina and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in the thick of it.  One of the few points of near-universal agreement is this:  Done right,  performance pay doesn't just boost teachers' paychecks,  it improves the quality of teaching.

That means teachers who earn richer rewards should be doing so for reasons that people who cut the paychecks can explain.  Maybe it's because of test scores or classroom management or leadership skills.  Maybe it's because they're qualified to teach high-level math or science and it's hard to fill those jobs.  You can argue whether the standards are the right ones,  but they shouldn't be a mystery.

Those of us outside the classroom can argue theory all day long.  Reality can be a different matter.  So I asked Kristin Cubbage and Romain Bertrand,  two teachers who have been publicly identified as getting hefty raises based on their skills,  to discuss the question of working with colleagues after that disclosure.

Cubbage: Salary report didn't cause strife

Cubbage and Bertrand are part of the CMS/Project LIFT  "opportunity culture"  experiment.  Since more than 700 teachers applied for 19 jobs with greater responsibility and higher pay,  it's reasonable to suspect that some of their colleagues wanted the jobs they got.

Cubbage,  a first-grade teacher at Ashley Park PreK-8 School,  is blunt:  If it were up to her,  individual salaries, bonuses and incentive payments wouldn't be disclosed.  And when she agreed to be featured in an Observer article as one of the people receiving higher pay,  "I was a little nervous because money is a touchy subject within education."

"However, I did not feel any 'strife' at my school. In fact no one mentioned the salary portion of the article at all,"  she wrote. "I have only heard comments such as: 'I would not want your job because of all of your different responsibilities each day.'  ... If the teachers at my school are aware of the extra pay, they are also aware of what my role entails and the responsibility that what comes with it."

Bertrand,  a Ranson Middle School math teacher,  said the pressure doesn't come from the knowledge that he's making more money but from the need to prove he's earning it.  He's now responsible for six other teachers and more than 800 math students.  Not only will he be judged on year-end test scores,  but he feels a need to prove himself to his colleagues daily.

"They need to see how this position brings added value to the team: what is this person doing to make us all better?"  Bertrand wrote.  "They need to understand what they need to do to get a shot at such an opportunity in the future.  How does this ladder work?  What are the skills required to move up the ladder and be given a chance to hold such a role?  What is the equitable process in place to give everyone a chance to get there?"

Under the traditional system,  a teacher like Bertrand would have had to leave the classroom to earn a good raise.  Now he remains  "in the trenches,"  where his colleagues can judge whether his work makes a difference for kids.

When this year's CMS salaries are posted,  the additional pay for Bertrand,  Cubbage and the other opportunity culture teachers will be on display. I'll wager those schools will have bigger salary differences than charter schools do.

As the effort expands,  we'll see how other schools select and reward their high performers.  Private donations are paying for the consultants who help schools define the duties for those teachers,  and public jobs are being rearranged to cover the higher salaries.  Eventually,  the work of these individual teachers will determine whether this was just another idea that sounded good in theory or a real breakthrough in reforming the profession.

That's a lot of pressure.  But these folks are stepping up to show they can handle it.

N.C. charter scrutiny getting tougher?

There's a new crew vetting the latest batch of N.C. charter applications,  and the early signs hint that they're tough judges.

Seventy-one boards applied to open charter schools in 2015-16.  Panels are currently reviewing those applications,  each of which can be more than 100 pages,  to recommend which should be interviewed by the new N.C. Charter School Advisory Board.

So far those subcommittees,  made up of advisory board members,  N.C. Office of Charter Schools staff and hired consultants,  have reviewed 24 applications and endorsed only eight, according to a tally kept by Eddie Goodall of the N.C. Public Charter Schools Association.  The advisory board,  made up mostly of charter school leaders,  will meet as a whole this spring to decide who actually gets an interview and which applications are recommended for approval by the N.C. Board of Education.

On Monday I listened in as a subcommittee reviewed two Charlotte applicants:  FOCUS Charter School and Heritage Learning Academy.

The FOCUS board wants to open a high school in west Charlotte's Severville neighborhood.  It would cater to students who have been incarcerated or failed ninth grade,  according to its application.  The school would have a STEAM theme  (science, technology, engineering, arts and math),  and groups of no more than 25 students would work together in 20-day instructional sessions.

Advisory board members Helen Nance, Paul Norcross and Mike McLaughlin and charter school staff Robin Kendall and Deanna Townsend-Smith said the group has an innovative approach for meeting a serious need.  Panelists praised the strong board and the positive attitude toward working with at-risk teens.

But they questioned the plan to mix what sounds like an alternative school with a STEAM program catering to the general population.  They voiced doubts about the staffing and the plans for 12th graders to finish at Central Piedmont Community College.  Several said the plan to open with 600 students in grade 9-11,  expanding to 800 in 9-12 the second year,  is too big for this kind of start-up.

In the end,  panelists said they hope this group will revamp its plan and bring it back next year,  but they didn't recommend that FOCUS get an interview this year.  "There are just too many questions,"  Kendall said.

The group was even more critical of the Heritage Learning Academy plan,  which was rated  "inadequate"  in many categories.  That board wants to open a K-12 school,  starting with about 150 elementary students the first year,  in southwest Charlotte.  The application said the school would relieve crowding in CMS' Berryhill and Reid Park K-8 schools.

The Heritage plan is based on the Charlotte Mason education model,  which the application describes as "developing the habit of narration"  and using  "relational education"  to develop each student's talents.

Subcommittee members said the application didn't explain the method clearly enough,  didn't articulate how it would be different from what students can get in CMS,  didn't describe the demographics of the students the school hopes to serve and didn't include specific,  measurable academic goals.  They voiced concerns that salaries budgeted seemed unrealistically low,  that the bylaws lacked a clear conflict-of-interest policy and that the board didn't bring enough financial know-how to run a school.

Not surprisingly,  the subcommittee didn't recommend an interview for Heritage, either.

How this plays out remains to be seen.  Last year's charter advisory panel got 70 applications,  eliminated 25 as incomplete,  interviewed 45 and recommended approval for 26.

Some charter critics had complained that the new advisory board,  appointed by the state legislature last fall,  might be too easy on applicants because it was so heavy on charter administrators and board members.  Instead,  those members seem to be trying to strike a balance between expanding access to charters while screening out applicants they believe aren't ready to pull of a venture they know is difficult.

"You've got charter school leaders who have excellent charter schools,"  Goodall said.  "They know what they're doing and it's pretty tough for an applicant."

No slowdown in Charlotte-area charter interest

I'm starting to sound like a broken record:  Mecklenburg County again dominates the state in charter-school interest,  based on letters of intent to seek charters for 2015-16.  The N.C. Office of Charter Schools got 170 letters by Friday's deadline,  and 43 were for Mecklenburg. Another 20 were for surrounding counties; charters can take students across county lines.

Next highest was Wake with 20,  then Durham and Guilford with 12 each.

That doesn't mean that many new schools will open,  of course.  This is just the first step in a long process.  Full applications are due Dec. 6.  They'll be reviewed by a charter school advisory board,  with the state Board of Education making the final decision about which will be approved for state,  local and federal money.  The state got 156 letters of intent for 2014 charters,  with 70 full applications that were eventually whittled to the 26 that just won approval. Eleven of those are in Mecklenburg and surrounding counties.

Students at Invest Collegiate, a charter that opened in uptown Charlotte in August

The big question is why the Charlotte region is spawning so much interest in charters,  which are alternative public schools run by independent boards.  Critics of CMS say it's dissatisfaction with district schools,  which still serve about 80 percent of the county's school-age children.  School board Chairman Mary McCray disagrees.  She noted that CMS already offers many of the themes that charter schools are touting,  from math-science magnets to credit-recovery programs for at-risk teens.

"They are basing their themes on us,"  McCray said.  "It's not like we're copying them."

Eddie Goodall of Union County,  a former state senator who now heads the N.C. Public Charter Schools Association,  theorizes that it boils down to risk and reward.  There are plenty of potential students in Charlotte and its suburbs,  while less densely populated areas pose a bigger risk of failing to draw enough students to survive.  Meanwhile,  counties that provide more for their local school district also channel a per-pupil share when students go to charters,  making the potential reward richer in Mecklenburg than in poorer rural counties.

Probably true  --  but it still doesn't explain why the densely populated Triangle area,  with all its higher education, high-tech and government resources,  isn't spawning a similar level of would-be school entrepreneurs.

Will charters dwindle in 2015?

Anyone who wants to open a charter school in North Carolina in 2015 must file a letter of intent by noon Sept. 6.

Goodall

Eddie Goodall, executive director of the N.C. Public Charter Schools Association,  worries that the "little-known cutoff date" will eliminate prospective operators.  The letters for 2014 applications weren't due until January 2013.

Joel Medley,  director of the N.C. Office of Charter Schools, disagrees.  The deadline has been posted on the web site and publicized to anyone who has inquired about opening a school since last November, he said.

If there's a drop in applications,  Medley said he's more likely to blame a new application fee.  Lawmakers set a range of $500 to $1,000; the state Board of Education will soon decide what the fee will be.  Medley said he doesn't know how the money will be spent: "We did not propose that."

Bottom line:  North Carolina is still trying to sort out a system for granting large numbers of charters every year.  When the state authorized charter schools -- public schools run by independent nonprofit boards,  rather than school districts -- in the late 1990s,  it capped the total at 100.  For years, the only openings were for a handful of spots that came open when an existing school closed.

Two years ago legislators lifted the cap,  creating a surge of new schools, especially in the Charlotte region. Twenty-three opened this summer, six of them in Mecklenburg and surrounding counties.

Applicants must work their way through an evolving process.  Those who file letters of intent follow up with full-fledged applications that detail their plans for education, spending and governance.  Those are reviewed by an advisory panel  --  legislators just created a new board to handle that work  --  and sent to the state Board of Education for final approval.

Last time around,  the charter office got 156 letters of intent and 70 actual applications.  The old advisory council recommended 26 for approval, and the Board of Education voted in August to consider six more.  The board is scheduled to vote on the final list next week.