More NC students are attending charter schools. But not all counties benefit
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- NC charter school enrollment rose 6% in 2025 despite a drop in total schools
- Charter schools received $1.2B in state funds, with 37 counties still lacking one
- Diversity and low-income enrollment increased, driven by federal grant programs
Enrollment in North Carolina’s charter schools is growing and becoming more diverse, but a new report also shows that the growth is spotty.
The Annual Charter Schools Report presented Monday shows 153,480 students in 208 charter schools — a 6% increase from last year and a 33% increase since 2019. But for the first time since 2009, the number of charter schools dropped statewide, with dozens of counties still not having a charter school.
“The number of schools are decreasing, the enrollment is still increasing, said Ashley Baquero, executive director of the State Office of Charter Schools. “I think this is what we will probably continue to see because schools that are really strong are expanding or growing students and those that are struggling are either just not opening or closing.”
The enrollment growth in charter schools occurred the same time that enrollment in traditional public schools dropped by 0.3% this school year. There are also more than 74,000 students on charter school waiting lists, although that figure includes duplicates.
The N.C. Charter Schools Review Board approved the report on Monday. The report, which will now go to the State Board of Education, is required by state lawmakers.
More than $1 billion for NC charter schools
Charter schools are non-traditional public schools that are exempt from some of the rules that school districts must follow. For instance, only 50% of a charter school’s teachers must be licensed and charters are not required to provide transportation or participate in the federal school lunch program.
Charters are given to non-profit groups. Some charter school boards contract with for-profit management companies that help cover the start-up costs and run the day-to-day operations in return for annual fees of up to 15% of the school’s revenue.
For this school year, charter schools received $1.2 billion of the $12.6 billion allocated in state funding for public schools. This doesn’t include the federal and local dollars charter schools receive.
In Wake County alone, $74.4 million in local funds will be distributed to charter schools this school year for 18,772 students who opted not to attend the school district.
Opponents say charter schools are taking money away from traditional public schools. But supporters say charter schools don’t get enough funding, particularly to help them start up.
Some counties without charter schools
Charter schools’ growth has been concentrated in the state’s urban counties, particularly Wake and Mecklenburg counties. The new state report shows 37 of North Carolina’s 100 counties don’t have a charter school.
“There’s nearly 40 counties that don’t have a charter school,” said John Eldridge, vice chair of the Review Board. “I was shocked by that.”
But being located in an urban area isn’t a guarantee. On Monday, the Review Board rejected allowing Nalanda Academy to open in August in Wake County because of a lack of enrollment to break even financially.
The vote means Nalanda will lose the charter and have to reapply if it wants to open in a future year.
“There’s enough kids to go around in Wake County and neighboring counties,” said Bruce Friend, chair of the Review board. “If this were going to be a school that had really high interest of families, they’d be filling it.”
Eldridge and board member Eric Sanchez said the report shows the need to get state lawmakers to help provide funding to get charter schools into the counties that don’t have one yet.
“I was wondering if the saturation point is hitting high levels in certain counties and whether or not that speaks to needing more investment in some of our other counties,” Sanchez said.
Are charter schools becoming more diverse?
A long-running source of controversy is the racial makeup of the state’s charter schools.
A 2024 report cited growth in enrollment in charter schools and private schools with helping making North Carolina public schools more racially segregated than they were in the 1980s.
But charter school leaders said the schools are becoming more diverse.
In the new state report, 46.3% of North Carolina’s charter school students are white, compared to 41.6% in district schools. Additionally, 14.8% of the state’s charter school students are Hispanic, compared to 22.8% in district schools.
“There can be a lot of language barriers if you’re not marketing and providing materials in Spanish for Hispanic families,” Baquero said.
But Baquero pointed to the long-term demographic trends. North Carolina’s charter schools have gone from being 88% white and Black in 2010 to 72% this school year as enrollment has risen among Hispanic, Asian and multi-racial students.
“The data tells a story of a charter school sector that has fundamentally changed its demographic composition over 14 years, becoming significantly more diverse and reflective of broader demographic changes in the student population,” the report says.
Additionally, the percentage of economically disadvantaged students in charter schools has increased 71% from 24% in 2019 to 41% this school year. It’s lower than the 51% economically disadvantaged in district schools, but the gap is significantly less than it was in 2019.
Baquero said the increase is likely due to a recently concluded federal grant program that provided charter schools with $36.6 million to increase the number of economically disadvantaged students. Several charter schools modified their selection lotteries to give priority to low-income applicants.
How are charter schools doing academically?
Academically, 26.6% of charter schools had an A or B performance grade and 31.5% had a D or F grade from the state last school year. A plurality of 41.9% of charter schools had a C grade.
The grades are largely based on passing rates on state exams.
Statewide, 27.8% of charter schools and traditional public schools had an A or B grade and 33.5% had a D or F grade. A plurality of 38.8% of all public schools had a C grade.
Bartley Danielsen, a Review Board member and professor at N.C. State, said his research indicates more charter school students are attending A and B schools than D and F schools. He said the higher performing schools, on average, have more students than the lower performing schools.
“The typical charter school student was not in a C school,” Danielsen said. “The typical charter school student was in a school that was a B.”
This story was originally published June 9, 2025 at 2:35 PM with the headline "More NC students are attending charter schools. But not all counties benefit."
