Charles Edward Miller
Democratic candidates have been steering away from supporting charter schools. For a further-left candidate like Bernie Sanders, a call to end charter expansion is not far removed from his other anti-corporate positions. But even longtime education reformers like Cory Booker are backpedaling, talking about an end to “raiding public schools.” Others, like Pete Buttigieg, are trying to repeat the Hillary Clinton line of 2016, some variation of “I’m against for-profit charters, but nonprofit charter schools are just fine.” Since this is again part of the conversation, let’s review the ways in which this is a distinction without a difference.
1. For-Profit Charter Schools Are Rarer Than Unicorns
At the moment, Arizona is the only state in the country that allows for-profit charter schools. There were more, but for-profit charters established themselves as a target for regulation early on. Plus, it seemed obvious to many people that a for-profit charter school pitted the financial interests of its owners against the educational interests of its students. Taking a stand against for-profit charters is like standing up against yeti attacks.
So if for-profits are so rare, then why does a twitter search on #AnotherDayAnotherCharterScandal turn up so many examples of fraud and misbehavior?
2. It’s Pretty Easy to Profit from a Nonprofit Charter
Let’s say I want to get into the charter business. I set up Nonprofit Elementary School. Then I immediately outsource all the operational functions—teaching, cleaning, cafeteria—to a for-profit company. So-called “sweeps contracts” allowed charters to pass on almost every cent of collected tax dollars to a for-profit management company. In some cases, the for-profit can actually end up owning the assets purchased for the school with public dollars. In particularly striking cases, like that of Baker Mitchell in North Carolina, one individual can own the charter school and the companies serving the charter. In Florida, James Blount awarded his own company a contract to develop a curriculum for his charter school, even though he has no educational background. Charter schools associated with Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen have long been accused of funneling U.S. tax dollars to his “government in exile.” And a goodly portion of the charter school industry has not been seeded by educators, but instead has been built up by real estate developers who have found charter schools a useful tool for using public tax dollars to acquire private assets.
And when it comes to personal profit, it can be as simple as signing a check. Eva Moskowitz, CEO of the Success Academy charter network—which enrolls around 17,000 students—landed a pay package of over three quarters of a million dollars (some of that from private donors) in 2016. This is not an anomaly among charter leaders. By contrast, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education Richard Carranza is paid the hitherto unheard of salary of $345K to oversee the NYC system of 1.1 million students.
In other words, the difference between nonprofit and for-profit charters is simply a matter of bookkeeping and organizational charts. The fundamental principle remains the same—someone expects to make a profit, and the less money spent on educating students, the more money goes into someone’s personal pocket.
Whether a charter school is for-profit or nonprofit, the drain on public school finances remains the same.
3. The Basic Math Remains the Same
Whether a charter school is for-profit or nonprofit, the drain on public school finances remains the same. This continues to be one of the basic fallacies at the heart of the charter movement—the assertion that cities can run two or three or ten parallel school systems for the same money that was previously used to run just one system. Calling a school a nonprofit does not ease this problem in the slightest; charter schools still dilute the public funding of education and provide little transparency or public oversight of their spending.
4. Who’s In Charge
Nonprofit and for-profit charters share another key characteristic: They are not owned or operated by the public. State laws vary, but in most states, charter schools are owned, operated and answerable to private corporations or individuals—not the public.
It’s not just a question of where the money goes. We also need to ask just who we want to be in charge of the education system. Do we want elected representatives who are required to work in an open and transparent manner, or do we want our education system run like a corporation—by unelected individuals who are answerable only to the owners of the business itself? Calling the business a nonprofit doesn’t change any portion of that question.
Candidates cannot thread the same needle that Clinton attempted in 2016. For this campaign, candidates can either support charter schools or not, but trying to sort charter schools into nonprofit and for-profit is simply trying to avoid a meaningful statement about the subject. Democratic candidates should be supporting the education system owned by, operated by, and accountable to the public—and in most states that’s not charter schools.