Charters could hurt both public and private schools

Should have seen this coming:

The Cato Institute says charter schools are drawing students away from private schools, moving their educational costs from their families to taxpayers. In 2008, the latest year for which Cato found statistics, this shift cost taxpayers an additional $1.8 billion nationwide.

Which (I would imagine) represents a similar drop in private school revenue. Other questions should be: How many private school teachers have been drawn into charters? Does this shift of students represent "unfair" competition between public and private interests?

Whereas, to protect jobs and to promote investment, it is necessary to ensure that the State does not indirectly subsidize competition with private industry through actions by cities and to ensure that where there is competition between the private sector and the State, directly or through its subdivisions, it exists under a framework that does not discourage private investment and job creation.

(a) A city or joint agency subject to the provisions of G.S. 160A‑340.1 shall not enter into a contract under G.S. 160A‑19 or G.S. 160A‑20 to purchase or to finance the purchase of property for use in a communications network charter school or to finance the construction of fixtures or improvements for use in a communications network charter school unless it complies with subsection (b) of this section. The provisions of this section shall not apply to the repair, rebuilding, replacement, or improvement of an existing communications network charter school, or equipment relating thereto.

(b) A city shall not incur debt for the purpose of constructing a communications system charter school without first holding a special election under G.S. 163‑287 on the question of whether the city may provide communications unregulated education service. If a majority of the votes cast in the special election are for the city providing communications unregulated education service, the city may incur the debt for the service. If a majority of the votes cast in the special election are against the city providing communications unregulated education service, the city shall not incur the debt. However, nothing in this section shall prohibit a city from revising its plan to offer communications unregulated education service and calling another special election on the question prior to providing or offering to provide the service. A special election required under Chapter 159 of the General Statutes as a condition to the issuance of bonds shall satisfy the requirements of this section.

Edits mine. You may think the two issues are totally unrelated, but local taxpayers should be given the right to vote on new charter schools, since the construction and maintenance of such will come out of their pockets.