The charter school industry was once the darling of the ed reform crowd, but these days charters are isolated and missing much of the support they once enjoyed. Writing for The Progressive, Jeff Bryant explains how that happened.
Now that abolishing the U.S. Department of Education has become the default position of the Republican Party, charter schools—which educate about 7 percent of K-12 students in the U.S.—also appear to be in disfavor in today’s more radical GOP. Indeed, if Trump returns to the White House and a Republican majority in Congress acts on their pledge to shut down the federal government’s involvement in education policy, charter schools would be irreparably harmed.
Abolishing the Department of Education would kill the charter school grant program, which is the federal government’s only source of dedicated funding to charters. It would also likely convert funding for special education and economically disadvantaged students—money that also goes to charters—into block grants that states could spend however they want.
Charter schools are, after all, technically public schools, even though it’s widely understood that they operate in a twilight zone between public and private. While they enjoy public funding and stature, they are private organizations with appointed boards, selective—and sometimes discriminatory—enrollments, and opaque business relationships. Because of the role charters play in privatizing public education, they have long been embraced by Republican politicians and advocacy groups.
But now Republicans may feel that the charter school industry is no longer necessary for helping them reach their ultimate goal of ending public education. In fact, charters could be getting in the way.
According to a recent report from the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, the same organization that created the infamous Project 2025, charter schools are “falling short” in providing parents with school choice options that are “consistent with their values.” The report, The Woke Capture of Charter Schools, urges state lawmakers and policy leaders to “adopt universal private school choice” instead of expanding charters. The report cites “K–12 education savings accounts,” or ESAs, that give parents taxpayer money to pay for private school tuition or other options, as better alternatives.
The problem with charters, according to the report, is that they’ve become a victim of “woke capture” due to the influence of “charter school authorizers and philanthropies.” To the authors’ deep consternation, their research concluded that charter schools are “significantly more woke than district schools.”
