"CHARTER SCHOOLS" APPROVED IN NORTH CAROLINA.
     Charter schools, funded by state money, are allowed to
start running in North Carolina at the start of the 1997 school
year.
     Local school boards and the state university system will all
be able to charter such schools, subject to few regulations.  The
main regulations are that each school have at least 65 students and
not be religiously-sponsored nor discriminatory.   Curriculum
decisions are largely up to individual schools, other than as to
meeting statewide requirements now in place for any school.
Teaching methods are mainly up to the school's choice.
     The newly-passed state law requires groups wanting to charter
a school to pay for such "start-up costs" as the building, but
gives every charter school the same per-pupil funding that public
schools get.
     As of now, there will be a cap of 100 charter schools
statewide and five per school district.
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