ADMINISTRATION CLARIFIES CHARTER SCHOOL RULES

Statement on grant program comes as advocates rally

Under pressure from charter school advocates, the Biden administration on Wednesday said some of the tough new rules for federal funding are not as tough as they appear.

In a series of tweets, the Education Department said it supports high-quality charter schools and tried to clarify some of its proposed priorities for a grant program that covers startup costs.

Still, the agency’s clarifications did not mention the biggest proposed change, which would bar for-profit management companies from contracting to run virtually all aspects of charter schools that are officially nonprofit.

“Our proposed priorities (for grants) are aimed at making sure students are delivered the highest quality education in excellent public charter schools,” the agency’s press secretary, Kelly Leon, said on Twitter.

The statement comes as hundreds of charter school parents and advocates arrived in Washington for a rally outside the White House on Wednesday, followed by lobbying visits to Capitol Hill. In another sign of public interest, the proposed rules for the grant program have drawn more than 26,000 public comments, an unusually large response.

“They’re beating on charter schools and they just need to back off,” said Gregory Harrington, who lives near Austin, Texas, where his fifth-grade daughter attends Harmony School of Science, a charter program. He estimated about 180 other parents from Texas attended the rally with him.

A group of parents spoke outside the Education Department on Wednesday morning before rallying across the street from the White House later that morning.

The notice of proposed requirements and selection criteria for the Charter Schools Program grants was published in March. Final rules are expected in the coming months.

Charter schools are publicly funded but privately run enterprises. They are meant to serve as laboratories of innovation as well as provide alternatives for families unhappy with their local public schools.

Some Democrats have soured on charters, though President Joe Biden has proved more ambivalent. As a candidate, he pledged to eliminate federal funding to support for-profit charter schools but said he supported high-quality nonprofit charters.

Last year, he asked for and received $440 million for the charter school program, keeping level funding for this year. Grants are typically about $500,000 per new school, and they have benefited about half of the existing charter schools.

But the Education Department also published tougher rules to qualify for those grants.

For instance, the proposal requires applicants to submit a community impact analysis demonstrating that there is “sufficient demand” for the new school and that the project would meet the needs of students and families in the community. To show “unmet demand,” applicants are asked to cite data about over-enrolled existing public schools.