Facilities funding

By now everyone in the charter community is aware that the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled against former state Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr in his lawsuit demanding that charter schools be given access to capital funds for school construction.  The court found that decisions regarding what types of funding charter schools should get were rightly in the hands of the legislature, and the charter school law clearly did not allow charters a share of public school capital funds. 

Now, Charter guy respects Bob Orr.  Charter guy likes Bob Orr.  If Charter Guy were a Charter Gal, she would say 'yes' if Bob Orr asked for a dance or a date.  But Charter Guy draws the line at taking funding decisions away from the legislature and turning them over to the judiciary.  Charter Guy is just not that kind of guy.  Or gal. 

Charter Guy knows this decision by the court is a major disappointment to any charter school operators who may have been counting on a slice of state or local capital funds, but really, it was almost inevitable given the law as it is.  Which just means that Charter Nation (that's all of us, loyal readers) need to redouble our efforts to elect legislators who will amend the law to allow a per-pupil share of capital funding for charter schools.  You know, like Senate Bill 8 would have done before it was eviscerated by the anti-charter crowd. 

Oh, and one other thing.  One of the reasons Charter Guy wishes Justice Orr had not filed this suit is because he hates reading smarmy, disingenuous editorials by the anti-charter media, such as this one:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/08/04/2501850/appeals-court-right-to-rule-against.html#ixzz1U6YUJZiE