Politicians Are Discovering They Can No Longer Ignore Charter School Outrages
In Wednesday’s Washington Post‘s Laura Meckler traces fading support for charter schools among Democrats who are running for President:
“Democrats have long backed charter schools as a politically safe way to give kids at low-performing schools more options… The presidential contest is proof that’s no longer the case. If the candidates say anything about charter schools, it’s negative… Instead, the Democratic candidates are pitching billions of dollars in new federal spending for schools and higher pay for teachers, with few of the strings attached that marked the Obama-era approach to education. It adds up to a sea change in Democratic thinking, back to a more traditional Democratic approach emphasizing funding for education and support for teachers and local schools.”
Except that major political change is excruciatingly slow and difficult. And, in education, the policy that most directly affects schools happens in state legislatures, where the American Legislative Exchange Council wields the power.
Just this week in West Virginia, for example, the state legislature passed an omnibus bill which combines added state investment in public schools with the launch of charter schools.
Nearby in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a scathing critique of the state legislature’s ongoing debate of bills that would supposedly regulate charter schools: “Last week, the Pennsylvania House passed a set of bills proffered to ‘fix’ Pennsylvania’s charter school law. Yet the bills fail to address necessary charter school funding reform, and two of the bills… specifically allow charters to expand without adequate oversight… Statewide, in 2016, state school districts paid $1.5 billion… in charter school tuition payments. Charter schools receive this funding regardless of whether their students are making the grade. Worse yet, in 2012-13 they were paid over $200 million more for special education services than they spent on these services for our students.”
Jeff Bryant explores in more detail just how Pennsylvania charter school funding is destroying CONTINUE READING: Politicians Are Discovering They Can No Longer Ignore Charter School Outrages | janresseger