‘WE’RE USED TO BEING FAVORED BY BOTH SIDES’
Public charter schools in surprise political fight as Trump, Democrats turn away
WASHINGTON ublic charter schools — caught between growing Democratic disenchantment and a Trump administration shift toward private schools — are preparing for political battle, as the long-protected education sector finds itself on the verge of abandonment.
Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, proposed major changes this month to a federal education fund that for decades has driven growth of charter schools, which typically are run independently but funded publicly and available, often through a lottery, to any child in a school district. In President Donald Trump’s budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins in October, the stand-alone charter schools fund would be dissolved into a broad educational block grant to the states, leaving charters to fight for money with competing educational priorities.
Presidential budgets usually hold little weight, especially when the House is held by the opposition party. But for charter schools, the Trump administration’s shift in emphasis toward private school support comes at a time when Democratic lawmakers have targeted the same federal charter fund.
Last year, the Democratic-led House appropriations subcommittee that oversees the education budget sought to cut the federal charter school fund by $40 million, though funding ultimately remained flat from the year before. This year, charters are bracing for the House to try to zero it out altogether.
DeVos is scheduled on Thursday to defend the department’s budget requests, which would take an overall 8 percent cut, before the subcommittee. Already, the charter school alliance has begun pleading with its members to lobby lawmakers.
“We’re used to being favored by both sides and not used to the controversy at the
Pnational level,” said Nina Rees, president and chief executive of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. She added, “This is a time that we can show our stripes.”
The Trump administration’s shift was a stark departure from its three previous budgets, which would have increased spending on charter grants, currently funded at $440 million. The new proposal would effectively eliminate the 26-year-old program. Instead, the fund, along with more than two dozen other programs deemed duplicative and ineffective, would be collapsed into a $19.4 billion block grant — about $4 billion less than current funding — that would be doled out to state school systems that would decide which programs to fund.
Education Department officials said the proposal would reduce bureaucracy, paperwork and federal influence in district-level programming decisions and was not a cut. In a statement, the department called itself “pro-charter, pro-taxpayer and pro-education freedom.
“While public charter schools are an important educational option for families across the country, and the secretary is unwavering in her support for them, the secretary has always maintained she is agnostic to the type of school, so long as it’s serving students well and parents have the freedom to choose it,” the department said in a statement.
Charter advocates were not comforted. Richard Buery Jr., the chief of policy and public affairs for KIPP public charter schools, said the charter grant cut was “unnecessary antagonism,” but more concerning was the 28 other programs for low-income public school students being cut.
“This administration has demonstrated year after year true disdain for black and Latino communities with rhetoric, and then reinforces that disdain with funding proposals that regularly demonstrate a lack of support for those communities,” Buery said.
At the same time, presidential candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have vowed to end the federal charter schools fund, accusing charters of draining resources from traditional public schools. In recent years, states led by Democratic governors have also taken measures to curb expansion of the schools, which operate in 45 states.
The federal charter schools program has provided both political and practical cover for the sector since its creation by President Bill Clinton in 1994. The funding, which is used for startup costs that districts often cannot front, is only a small fraction of charter operations, but it is considered vital. Nearly 7,000 charter schools serve nearly 3.2 million students, and 40 percent of them were started with funding from the program, according to the alliance. Nearly 60 percent of charter schools that opened from 2006 to 2016 used the fund.
Those who have the most to lose are charter leaders of color who run single-site schools and disproportionately rely on Washington to fund and expand them.
Jamar McKneely, who heads InspireNOLA, a network of charters in New Orleans, said he was stunned by the proposal. An Education Department official had visited his schools this month to see how he had used the $600,000 a year he has been tapping from Washington. The network’s schools, which are 99.2 percent black, are the highest performing open-admission charters in the city.
“D.C. never sees the personal stories, how these funds touch students,” McKneely said. “I really hate how the individuals making these decisions are just looking at line items, and many of them don’t even have their kids in schools that look like our schools.”
Last year, Trump’s budget proposed drastic cuts to the 29 programs that it would turn into block grants this year, including after-school programs for low-income schools and enrichment for gifted students. Amid the backlash, the president personally pitched the block grant concept to DeVos, according to a senior administration official, to at least preserve programs that districts might want to fund.
Education Department officials said charter advocates are being too risk-averse: The block grant proposal could actually lead to more funding in charter-friendly states where leaders could prioritize charter schools over other efforts, like after-school programs.