President Joe Biden is taking steps to ensure that federal education funding will not be squandered on unneeded, mismanaged schools and the operators wanting to profit off of taxpayers.
But these efforts are being opposed by the powerful charter school lobby, which has enjoyed a privileged status in the U.S. Department of Education, granting charter operators exclusive access to an annually renewable grant program established under the government’s Charter School Program, or CSP.
Since its inception in 1994, CSP has awarded an estimated $4 billion to charter schools, charter industry-related advocacy and support groups, and state grant programs that fund charters. This year, CSP’s budget was $440 million. So where has all that money gone?
As a 2019 analysis of CSP conducted by the Network for Public Education revealed, 37 percent of the program’s grantees—1,779 charter schools—had either never opened or had quickly shut down after getting the federal funds. According to a separate report published in 2021, more than $158 million in grant money from CSP went to charter schools owned by for-profit operators between 2006 and 2017, despite a 2006 court ruling that upheld the decision to ban the program from supporting for-profit companies.
The Biden Administration’s proposals would address this wasted and misguided spending. (Public comments on these proposals will be accepted through April 13, 2022). To ensure federal funds don’t go to charter schools that never open or quickly close, the education department proposes that a grant applicant proposing to open a new charter school, or replicate or expand an existing one, should conduct an assessment of community needs and submit a community impact analysis demonstrating there is “sufficient demand” for the school.
Given that the number-one reason charters close is due to financial problems—typically caused by a school’s inability to enroll enough students—it makes sense that any effort to grow charters should be based on some analysis that shows the school will be viable.
The Biden Administration is also proposing that any recipient of charter grants should “collaborate” with a public school or school district on critical activities such as transportation or teacher professional development.
Because poor management is the second-most frequent cause of charter school closures, partnering charters with the expertise of local educators can provide helpful oversight. Also, having a district directly engaged with the charter school ensures the local community has sufficient skin in the game to make the effort to help a struggling charter succeed.
Charter school industry lobbyists have responded to these proposals with a campaign of hyperbolic misinformation.
To bring the CSP in line with the department’s requirements, the Biden Administration is strengthening the regulatory language to bar grant money from going to charters in which a for-profit management company “exercises full or substantial administrative control over the charter school.”
Applicants to the federal grant program could still contract with for-profit companies for the wide range of services schools have customarily outsourced, but funds would be prohibited from going to charters that simply hand over the bulk of their finances, including federal grant money, to for-profit operators who can spend it on whatever they want.
Charter school industry lobbyists have responded to these proposals with a campaign of hyperbolic misinformation.
In an email to constituents, Nina Rees, the president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, calls the proposed regulations “a backdoor attempt to prevent new charter schools from opening.” In an op-ed for The Hill, Will Marshall, the president and founder of the Public Policy Institute, a beltway think tank that advocates for charter schools, called the Biden Administration’s proposals an “attack” on charter schools by “bureaucratic gremlins.”
Rightwing media outlets have taken up the charter lobby’s campaign. The National Review, for example, equated the Biden Administration’s proposals to a “war on charter schools,” while the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal labeled the proposals “charter school sabotage.”
But very few of the roughly 7,700 charter schools or the 3.4 million students enrolled in them will be affected by these regulatory changes. And charter lobbyists have provided no data showing how the changes will slow new charter growth, which jumped by a robust 7 percent in 2020-2021.
Also, it seems odd to see prominent conservative voices who have questioned federal spending on education—and even advocated for the federal government to have no role in education funding at all—to oppose a crackdown on questionable spending by the Department of Education. But that is indicative of the carte blanche status the charter school industry has enjoyed in Washington, D.C., for years now.
The reason for conservatives’ ire has everything to do with the fact that Biden’s new guidelines are poised to bring that freewheeling era to an end.