Charter education

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Charter education is a provision of tax-funded education that operates under private businesses. The authorization of such system is a contract known as a charter. As such, they are subject to less regulation than public schools, but are more accountable with the academic performance of their students. Furthermore, they do not charge tuition but can receive funds from other sources depending on whether the business is non-profit or for-profit.

Charter schools originally started progressive, as an offer of more school choice as an accessible, but independent system. However, in the early 2010s, its vision has been changed to better fit the narrative of an agenda of the Republican Party, especially when they started to promote a fear-mongering narrative that the left is taking over public education.

The results of this system have been from mixed to negative in academic performance and satisfaction as the charter schools lack advantages over the public and private sector of education. Institutions are closing regularly due to failures of keeping promises described in the charter for a few years. Despite such failures, charter contractors continue to push unrealistic promises and open new buildings as the enrollment rate in charter education continues to grow.

History

In 1991, Minnesota became the first state to allow Charter Schools, but the concept of them in the United States dates back to the 1970s. Specifically, it's widely believed that Stephen Sugarman and John Coons first pitched the idea in 1971. The idea failed to gain steam, however, until around seventeen years later, when Albert Shanker, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, proposed the idea in Germany in 1988. (Shanker went on to change his views once he saw how they were being implemented, and turned against them in his later years.)

Coming into conservative puppetry

Believe it or not, although those on the right are the largest supporters of charter schools today, this was not always the case. In between their first proposal and their introduction to mainstream political discourse, a California Democrat named Leo Ryan took interest in the idea and asked the two to expand on it, leading to them writing an entire book on the topic. Albert Shanker, the man credited for bringing the idea of Charter Schools into political discourse, was also rather progressive. Specifically, he was a union leader who was once described as "an articulate and fearless labor leader who was twice jailed for violating the state law that barred strikes by public employees." He was so hated by the right during his time that they even fabricated the quote "when school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children" to mock his way of looking at the world.

The conservative movement specifically took interest in charter schools because of their interest in privatizing education, something they have been in support of since at least the 1950s, when southern states first implemented voucher programs for the purpose of allowing white students to go to racially segregated schools after segregation of public education was declared unconstitutional. During the Reagan Administration, this also famously took the form of the attempts from the Executive Branch to abolish the Department of Education. The lack of oversight charter schools have would, therefore, be rather attractive to many on the right.

The promises

One of the major promises that charter education gives is an alternative to the disadvantage of low income and ethnic minorities. Republican strategist Matthew Dowd even told George W. Bush to frame the issue like this in 2001 in hopes that he would increase his share of non-white votes, specifically among the black and Latino population, in the 2004 election. As Barbara Miner noted in her 2002 article on the subject:

While universal vouchers remain the goal, for tactical reasons conservatives have wrapped vouchers in the mantle of concern for poor African Americans and Latinos. Indeed, voucher supporters are fond of calling school choice the new civil rights movement. This plays well not only with voters of color but also with liberal suburban whites who, while they may be leery of allowing significant numbers of minorities into their schools, nonetheless support the concept of equal rights for all.

Conservatives and their front groups in the African American and Latino communities have not been shy about comparing voucher opponents to Southern segregationists. During the Congressional push for vouchers in Washington, D.C., this fall, groups such as D.C. Parents for School Choice launched a particularly vicious campaign against prominent Democrats. “Forty years ago, politicians like George Wallace stood in the doors of good schools trying to prevent poor black children from getting in,” one ad said, comparing voucher opponents like Senator Edward Kennedy to Wallace.

This is an argument some on the right still use to this day. In 2020, the Twitter account for the right-wing website Reagan Battalion wrote "School choice is the civil rights issue of our time."

Their real practices

A school undergoes charter education when they obtain a contract, known as a charter, that describes the background, mission, and objectives of the school. These charters typically last around 3-5 years. In that period, if they fail to meet certain achievements in the contract, the institution will be closed.

Selection entries

The most privileged children tend to perform the best in education, making them an asset for private corporations. As such, many charter schools tend to put out restrictive measures for selection that often exclude children who are either disadvantaged or who have special needs, giving a more homogeneous population of students that are white, heterosexual, and cisgender in the charter schools.

Incompetent staff

Like private schools, the regulations on teacher qualifications in charter schools are looser than public schools. Consequentially, the charter schools tend to hire newer teachers who are less experienced. In some cases, the schools might even fake the certifications for the teachers in contrast to their competence, but courts have stuck down this scheme. One closed charter school in Florida had a board member who had a felony charge.

The (inconclusive) results

A 2015 Stanford report found favorable changes with charter schools in urban areas. However, the charter schools still fail to meet sufficient accountability requirements to their local school district according to a 2017 report from SCRIBD in which they found a 50% association between openings and closures of charter institutions. The report also mentions how the funds robbed from public education is essentially continuing to be turned into dust due to the "mismanagement, poor academics, or competition" in charter schools.

Growth, death, and repeat

Charter schools continue to open and make unrealistic promises despite previous failures. Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos supported public funding and voucher programs of private schools in her home state of Michigan for a period of two decades. The Detroit Free Press found that the charter schools were not accountable for student performance nor were they accountable financially. During a 2018 interview on "60 Minutes", DeVos failed to dispute that the Michigan charter-school system did not improve student performance.