From their cold, dead fingers...

Charter school advocates who are hoping that the election of a new governor in 2012 will usher in a  pro-charter era in state government need to take a close look at the details of the new Public Charter School Advisory Council which the state board of education is slooooooooowly putting together.  Those stalwart guardians of the education status quo have written the rules for the new council in such a way that anti-charter appointees will continue to dominate it for years.  The details can be found here:

http://sbepolicy.dpi.state.nc.us/

In brief, the council will be made up of 15 members and will have only advisory functions; the state board will remain in complete control of all aspects of charter school policy.  The governor will appoint a majority of the members (8), while the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tem of the Senate will each get to nominate three members.  The Superintendent of Public Instruction will nominate the final member.

We know what kind of lackeys our current governor plans to fill the board with, and we can assume that the superintendent's lone nominee will be no charter supporter either.  That's nine reliably anti-charter votes to start with.  Assuming that our legislative leaders nominate only pro-charter candidates for the six seats they control on the council, the council will begin life with a 9-6 anti-charter majority. 

You might think that simply electing a pro-charter governor (and superintendent) in 2012 would solve the problem, and it would--but not right away. 

That's because the people our current officials are appointing to the council are going to be serving for a long time yet to come--most of them for four years.  To make matters worse, the terms of these initial appointees are staggered in such a way that the governor's and superintendent's picks serve longer terms than those nominated by the legislators.

Six of the governor's picks will serve full four year terms, as will the superintendent's choice.  One of the governor's appointees will serve for three years, and the last one for only two.  That means that even if  the governor is replaced with a pro-charter candidate in 2012, there will only be one opening on the council in 2013 and one in 2014 for the new governor to fill.

And that's assuming that the state board really does get the council up and running before the end of this year.  If the board can somehow delay the official launching of the council until January 1, 2012 or later, you can add one year to those earliest replacement dates above. 

There's more mischief in the details.  The governor is not required to pick anyone with any knowledge of or experience in charter schools.  In fact, her appointees don't even have to pretend to be supportive of charter schools.  The legislative nominees are just that--nominees.  They must apparently be approved by the full board before being seated.  And two of them must be either district school board members or employees of district schools. 

All this goes to show that the legislature can pass all the laws they want to, but if they don't keep a close watch on how the bureaucracy is implementing those laws they don't do a bit of good.