Congratulations are in order to thousands of public charter-school parents, educators and advocates who lifted their voices in opposition to the U.S. Education Department’s proposed changes to the federal Charter School Program. Thanks to their relentless advocacy, the finalized rules adopted recently are more rational and slightly less burdensome than the bull-in-a-china-shop scheme the department unveiled in March.
Congress established the CSP in 1994 to provide federal support for children who are poorly served by traditional public schools. The CSP benefited from the support of every presidential administration since—until Joe Biden. Although the program represents a minuscule fraction of the federal education budget, the returns on that investment have been high: The millions of dollars in grants the CSP awards each year enable thousands of new public charter schools to open or to add additional campuses. The vast majority of these schools are located in urban centers, where they serve mostly low-income and minority children.
The department’s proposed rules would have required a public charter school seeking a CSP grant to form a partnership with a traditional public school—in other words, with a competitor. The grant-seeking public charter school would also have had to prove the “need” for a new school based solely on enrollment levels in the traditional schools in the district—ignoring that charter schools serve many purposes beyond the relief of overcrowding. The school also would have had to prove its student population would be “diverse.” Never mind that many traditional schools aren’t. This last demand overlooks both the realities of the U.S. housing market and the desire of some minority communities, such as Native Americans, to establish culturally relevant schools that serve specific student populations with unique needs.
Read the full piece in The Wall Street Journal.
