A real education lottery

Usually a lottery means big bucks. But for some area families today, it was about getting their child a good education.

Today was the annual lottery for Charter Day School in Leland. The lottery system is needed because the state caps the number of charter schools and the students they can teach leaving some families disappointed.

Parents anxiously awaited the fate of their child’s education. One-hundred-thirty new students got a spot in the school based purely on the luck of the draw. Chosen parents were grateful, but not everyone was so lucky…

“There’s not a lot of options, good options, for my daughter to get a good education,” Jamila Fogle said. “And I think that having it based on luck, is a little unfair.”

With 16-thousand names on a waiting list for charter schools in North Carolina, a lottery is the only option. Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina invited state lawmakers to the drawing to try to get them to raise the cap and open more charter schools in the state. Rep. Frank Iler supports increasing the number of charter schools across the state from current limit of 100.

Families who weren’t picked today now go on a waiting list for future spots