Governments by Open Records: <\/b>The original purpose of transparency through Open Meetings and Public Records and LEA salary disclosures is that these laws applied to the governments which made<\/i> the rules and controlled<\/i> the public\u2019s money\u2013 the governments, whether state (the legislature and executive branch and DPI), county, or city.\u00a0 These entities needed transparency in their operations so the public could see what was going on between elections and adjust their votes accordingly.\u00a0 The people in the voting booths were the only check or balance on these government entities.\u00a0 Oversight of government rests with an informed public who elects the government, and who have no choices, otherwise.
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Corporations by Contracts:<\/b> The need for transparency as it may apply to private corporations is quite different.\u00a0 The government has the discretion to make contracts or award grants to private corporations to accomplish certain ends.\u00a0The government retains the right, through its contracts or grants to terminate the contract or cancel the grant if the ends envisioned are not being achieved. The need for transparency \u00a0is superfluous because the government can cancel the grant or contract if the resulting performance does not meet the specifications. \u00a0The public does not vote on the contractor, vendor, or supplier. \u00a0Oversight of contracts and grants rests with the government which issues these contracts and grants and which has many choices for promoting its ends.<\/i><\/p>\n
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\u00a0<\/i>Government Inspection or Public Disclosure: <\/b>We must be careful to distinguish between unfettered government<\/i> inspection<\/i> and unlimited public disclosure.\u00a0 <\/i>The government, in its role issuing contracts and grants, requires the right to inspect and audit the records of its contractors and grantees. Furthermore, private corporations receiving government grants must make available their annual financial statements and their tax returns for public scrutiny.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i>So when a politician says that private corporations must be subject to the same public disclosure and transparency as government entities, he is effectively saying that government is not capable of properly exercising its oversight duties.\u00a0 The politician is tacitly admitting that his government is failing in its oversight duties and must abdicate this oversight role to the public – who elected them for that job in the first place.<\/p>\n
In a free-market capitalistic society, the quality of results determines success or failure and ensures efficiency in the delivery of goods and services.\u00a0 That principle should stand as the criteria for governmental oversight of its contracts and grants.\u00a0 When the media intrudes into the affairs of private corporations by disrupting meetings, making exhaustive, pointless demands for mountains of records, and demanding the most private personal information of employees,\u00a0the operations of these corporations become distorted in coping with these demands.\u00a0The corporation becomes less efficient, less responsive to those it serves, and ultimately may fail in its essential purpose of creating the better ends for which it was striving.<\/p>\n
Recently Governor McCrory told a reporter that private corporations operating charter schools of parental choice under contracts with the state should be made to adhere to the same transparency as government-run schools with forced student assignment.\u00a0 \u00a0Thus, he was effectively saying that he did not trust the government\u2019s oversight body \u2013 the well-funded\u00a0\u00a0Office of Charter Schools (OCS) in the Department of Public Instruction \u2013 to properly fulfill its role in ensuring that the contracts were being complied with. Also is the implication that he felt the parents were too ignorant to properly exercise their choice in selecting a school for their children.\u00a0 So he wants to let the media intrude and spin their agenda and force burdensome disclosures on these private corporations holding contracts for schools of choice.\u00a0 Are politicians too afraid to defend the government\u2019s oversight role in the contracts that it enters into with private corporations?<\/p>\n
A Few Differences:<\/b> Unlike government schools, no child is forced to attend any charter school.\u00a0 Unlike government schools, charter schools can be closed (by the government) if they violate their contracts or do not have \u201cclean\u201d financial government audits.\u00a0 Unlike government schools, the parents can force a charter school shut-down by merely redrawing their children. Unlike government schools, they can be shut down if their test scores on the government tests are too low.\u00a0 Unlike government schools, they are prohibited from seeking additional funding from their county for any reason.\u00a0 Unlike government schools, they do not receive any separate public funding for their facilities. Unlike government schools, they may enact merit-based performance salaries for their teachers.<\/p>\n
The North Carolina charter school act states that one purpose for charter schools is to move from a rule-based system to a performance-based system: \u201cHold the schools established under this Part accountable for meeting measurable student achievement results, and provide the schools with a method to change from rule-based to performance-based accountability systems.\u201d Really, Governor McCrory?<\/p>\n
Make all Pigs Equal:<\/b> Governor, you said you want the same transparency in private corporations as in government schools (in spite of extensively funded government oversight)?\u00a0 Then how about the same funding, the same facilities, the same permanence regardless of test scores, the same ability to seek county funds, the same ability to force students to attend?\u00a0 Why not make us all the exactly same so we can all continue the same decades long record of mediocrity and same low achievement and same inefficiencies of the government schools by these charter schools?<\/p>\n