Teachers unions may love Biden’s attack on charter schools, but parents won't be happy
Joe Biden’s Education Department is following through on his campaign promise to go after charter schools.
While on the presidential campaign trail, Joe Biden made it clear where he stood on charter schools.
“I am not a charter school fan,” he said.
As president, Biden’s still not.
You can give him props for consistency, but his stance is increasingly out of step with families and the many states that have recently expanded public and private school choice.
Extended school closures, including in some of the country’s largest public school systems, led to a “profound” impact on student learning and opportunities, says Ben DeGrow, policy director of education choice for ExcelinEd.
In the 2020-21 school year, at least 1.5 million students left their district schools. In the fall of 2020, nearly 50 million students were enrolled in the nation's public schools.
“Charter schools and private schools as well as homeschooling – all the options out there have been refuges for families looking for either in-person learning or flexible learning or just quality learning during the pandemic,” DeGrow says.
Parents are choosing charters
More than 3 million students – a number that has doubled in the past decade – now attend charter schools in 45 states and Washington, D.C.
The demand is obvious.
Opinions in your inbox: Get exclusive access to our columnists and the best of our columns every day
Biden’s loyalties, however, lie firmly with teachers unions adamantly opposed to any policies that threaten their hold on education. These unions helped elect Biden and Democrats, donating more than $40 million to their 2020 campaigns. So it’s really no surprise that Biden’s Education Department is following through on his campaign promise to go after charter schools.
This month, new rules took effect that seek to prevent charters from benefiting from a grant program Congress created, and charter advocates fear this is just the start of a coordinated attack on their existence.
Charter school advocates are fighting back in a federal lawsuit, filed last week, against the U.S. Department of Education. The Pacific Legal Foundation is representing the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, the lead plaintiff and Michigan’s charter school advocacy group, and the Ohio-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a nonprofit charter school authorizer.
Another case of regulatory overreach
The case is centered on preserving charter schools in American education, but it’s also about quelling the growing power of regulatory agencies to act beyond what Congress instructed and intended. This is a problem that extends far beyond the Education Department (just look at the Environmental Protection Agency).
Biden's actions mark a departure with former President Barack Obama. Obama appointed two charter-friendly Education secretaries, and during his tenure he expanded the Charter Schools Program now under attack.
Republicans saw Trump's end finally loom: Then the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago gave his message a jolt of life
Biden has chosen to align himself with the progressives in his party, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and part of this anti-school choice agenda was highlighted in the 2020 Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force.
It's ironic that Democrats often pay lip service to supporting “quality” school options because that’s precisely what the Charter Schools Program does. The $440 million competitive program offers grants to new and existing charters to help them get off the ground or expand, and the schools are chosen based on their track record or their potential to do well for students.
The Pacific Legal Foundation and its plaintiffs are arguing that the Education Department’s rules hamper the program as designed by Congress and are therefore illegal. They also contend that the department’s actions deny students and parents educational opportunities.
Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, says the department can’t advance an anti-charter agenda that goes against what Congress wanted.
The cost of medicine: Do our elected leaders know how it feels to choose between food and medicine? I do.
“We want to challenge the department’s entire premise,” he told me. “If you look at the statute, Congress did not give any role for the department to impose new conditions.”
The administration released the proposed rules in March and received more than 26,000 comments. The department did “soften” language in the final rules, but the result will be the same, Kruckenberg says.
Rules designed to quash choice
The rules make it harder for charter schools to win the grants in several ways.
The burden is on them to prove a community need, and one way to do that is by showing that traditional public schools are "over-enrolled" where charters seek to locate. Yet, that is not why most parents seek another option. It’s usually because they aren’t satisfied with the school culture or academics.
And applicants must show that their schools are racially balanced by matching the racial diversity of their community – a burden other public schools don’t face. Again, this seeks to undermine charters as these schools serve a disproportionate number of minority and low-income families who have decided to leave failing district schools.
Kruckenberg says the courts, especially the Supreme Court, are standing up to agency overreach, and he’s hopeful the lawsuit will overturn the new rules.
The Biden administration is trying to pay back the unions that backed him, but parents who have benefited from charter schools – or plan to – should make their voices heard.
As DeGrow says: “These rules that the Department of Education has laid down are definitely working against what more families are calling for and what more students need.”
More from Ingrid Jacques:
‘Inflation reduction’ bill? Don’t buy Democrats’ fantastical twisting of reality.
Democrats so badly want Trump to go away, but FBI's Mar-a-Lago search is helping him stay
2022 elections could be a new year of the woman. Can conservative women catch up?
Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at Paste BN. Contact her at ijacques@usatoday.com or on Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques