Biden adds hurdles to federal grants for charter schools, keeps promise to teachers unions

The Biden administration is set to impose new rules for federal education grants that critics say are designed to limit the growth of public charter schools. 

The Department of Education proposed updated requirements that charter schools must meet to access the roughly $440 million in federal grants that are mostly used for start-up costs and implementing technology.

The new requirements help fulfill a campaign promise made by President Biden to rein in the nation’s growing network of charter schools. It was a promise that was backed by the nation’s teachers unions.

To get the federal grant money under the new rules, charter schools would first have to prove the surrounding school district has an “unmet demand” that will be filled by the charter school, including “any over-enrollment of existing public schools” or other information showing the school would fill “a demand for specialized instructional approaches.”

It would also impose new diversity requirements that new charter schools in communities of color and cut off federal funds for public charter schools run entirely by for-profit companies. 

Charter school advocates say the new rules are aimed at restricting the charter school movement by cutting off federal funds.

“You cannot simultaneously say, as the proposed regulations do, that it’s a good thing to listen to communities and families, and then severely restrict the ability of communities to open schools that respond to those very needs,” Karega Rausch, president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, told The Washington Times.

Education Department officials said the new rules, which would be imposed following a 30-day comment period that ends in mid-April, would improve quality and accountability in charter schools. They also said the new rules align with “Biden-Harris administration priorities and commitments.

Indeed, Mr. Biden pledged during the 2020 campaign that he would end federal funding for for-profit charter schools, which would be partially achieved in the new proposed rule, and take steps to curb poorly performing charters. 

The number of charter schools has more than doubled in the past 15 years, to roughly 7,700 schools serving 3.4 million students, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

There are thousands of students on waiting lists to get into charter schools across the county.

Mr. Biden’s pledge to change the nation’s growing charter school system echoed the concerns of teachers unions that the publicly funded but privately run schools pull money away from traditional public schools while lacking the same degree of accountability. 

He told an audience at a 2019 public schools forum that his administration would not adhere to Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ strong advocacy of school choice and expansion of the nation’s charter school system. 

“If I’m president,” Mr. Biden promised, “Betsy DeVos’ whole notion [of charter schools] are gone.”

Mrs. DeVos was a leading advocate for charter schools before becoming Mr. Trump’s education secretary.

Charter schools are nonprofits but can be operated in part or fully by for-profit companies, an arrangement that critics say lacks transparency and can result in a school failing to act in the best interest of the students. Under the new rule, schools fully operated by for-profit companies would no longer have access to federal funding. 

Charter schools are mainly funded by the states and by local school systems but about 45% rely on federal funding available through the grant program. The Department of Education reports that the average award for participating public charter schools was approximately $500,000 in the 2016-2017 schools year.

Charter school advocates say the new rule seeking proof of overcapacity will make it harder for new charter schools to access the federal grants in locations where there are long waitlists of students trying to escape poorly performing, traditional public schools that are have lost enrollment because families are fleeing the system. 

In Washington, for example, the city’s school system operates well under capacity and nearly half of all public students attend charter schools.

School enrollment decreased in the traditional public schools in the 2021-2022 school year and increased in the city’s public charter schools. 

“That’s an argument for having more exit options for kids who are stuck in schools that are not working for them,” said Corey DeAngelis, the national research director for the American Federation for Children, a school choice advocacy group. 

The new Department of Education hurdle, Mr. DeAngelis said, “is an approach that focuses on what is best for the teachers unions, and the buildings, when it comes to the status quo schools.”

Critics also said the new diversity requirements for accessing the federal grants would be a difficult standard to meet for many charter schools.

Education Department officials who administer the grants would give priority to charter school applicants “that plan to operate or manage high-quality charter schools with racially and socio-economically diverse student bodies.”

For schools where such diversity isn’t possible, those applying for the funds would have to provide a plan to ensure their charter school “would not increase racial or socioeconomic segregation or isolation in those schools.”

Charter school advocates say the diversity rule ignores the high number of charter schools that operate in minority communities that are most in need of alternatives to poorly performing, traditional public schools. 

“Requiring all charter schools to follow the same prescriptive measures could have an adverse impact, especially on charter schools seeking to open in historically segregated communities and those with culturally affirming models,” Mr. Rausch said. 

Another proposed rule would require grant applicants to include proposals to “collaborate with at least one traditional public school or traditional school district in an activity that would be beneficial to all partners in the collaboration and lead to increased educational opportunities and improved student outcomes.”

Charter school advocates say this new rule would reduce autonomy and reinstate public school and teachers union control that parents and students seek to escape when they enroll in charter schools.

Education Department officials said the new proposals are aimed at helping grant administrators properly review and evaluate those seeking federal charter school money.

“These proposed requirements and assurances would also help ensure that all students have access to high-quality, diverse, and equitable learning opportunities in their communities, which should be a goal of all public schools,” the department said in proposing the rules change.

Teachers unions and other public school advocates have demanded more regulation and even an outright ban on new charter schools, which they say draw money away from traditional and more heavily unionized public schools.

The Los Angeles Teachers Union, for example, pushed the city to put a moratorium on new charter schools and made the demand in its negotiations to end a six-day strike in 2019. The moratorium never passed the city council, but the California legislature passed a new law in 2019 giving local school districts more authority to reject new charter schools. 

Charter schools typically receive about 29% less in public funding per pupil than traditional public schools, according to a 2017 study carried out by the University of Arkansas.

Donald Cohen, who is executive director of the public services advocacy group In the Public Interest, said he welcomed the proposed rules change.

Charter schools have proliferated quickly but without enough oversight, leading to segregation, lack of accountability and closures, he said. 

The proposed enrollment impact rule, he said, is meant to keep neighborhoods from being flooded by new charter schools that cause a debilitating enrollment drop at the regular public schools.

“Because of the growth, we need to kind of rationalize the system,” Mr. Cohen said. “There needs to be these kinds of regulations and rules to be able to create charters that are really needed, that are really diverse and that really do carry out the original purpose of sharing and learning how to teach kids in a changing world.”