A Note to Massachusetts Progressives: Remember, It Was Democrats Who Brought Charter Schools to Town
Corrected October 13th
In the state of Massachusetts, voters will make a decision in November as to whether they should increase the number of charter schools. Currently, there is a cap of 120 charter schools statewide, with a limit of 18 percent of total spending in districts where students consistently struggle. The battle of propaganda has already begun, with lies being spread just as quickly as they do from Donald Trump’s mouth.
Charter schools are public schools that operate independently from district bureaucracies. They have the freedom to design their own schools and select their own teachers, but they are also held to higher levels of accountability. If charter schools fail and their students fall too far behind, they are closed down.
Critics of the current proposition to lift the charter cap in Massachusetts, led by the teachers unions, use the same arguments that are used to oppose charter schools in other states. One of the main arguments presented in their television ads is that charters drain $400 million a year from our public schools. Additionally, they label charters as "corporate reform," claiming that it is a Republican attempt to privatize our schools.
Both of these arguments are false. More accurately, they are lies that are being used to protect the jobs of mainly white, middle-class teachers and union officials at the expense of predominantly poor, minority students. The reason for this is that most charter schools are not unionized. Therefore, when charters expand, school districts hire fewer teachers and the union loses members.
Unfortunately, many liberals fall for these lies because they assume that organized labor must always be in the right. Just recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren joined their ranks, which is quite disappointing. It is mind-boggling to see Elizabeth Warren herself, who claims to be a champion of opportunity, standing in the way of poor, minority children and blocking their chance for a better education.
Do charter schools actually drain funding from our public schools? How can that be possible when charters are public schools themselves? The funding that would have gone to traditional school districts is redirected to charter schools because parents have actively chosen to enroll their children in them. Do the district and union leaders believe that the money belongs to them?
From the perspective of taxpayers, it is our money that we use to provide a quality education for every child. So, when a child is no longer attending a particular school for any reason (such as moving to another district or opting for a charter school), the money also leaves with them.
In reality, the districts in Massachusetts have a favorable deal that was created by the state legislature to prevent them from hindering the growth of charter schools. Traditional public schools are allowed to keep some of the funding for several years after a student transfers to a charter school. Thanks to this arrangement, the presence of charter schools actually results in more funding per child for the districts, not less.
The districts and unions complain about fixed costs, such as heating and electricity, which remain the same even if a child leaves. However, this is how the real world operates. Every business and nonprofit faces similar challenges, and yet we do not subsidize or limit their competition. Instead, we expect them to find ways to cut costs or attract more customers.
Think about it this way: when you switch doctors, do you continue paying your old doctor for a few years? When you move to a different city or town, does the previous location get to keep a portion of your property tax revenue? The very idea is absurd and demonstrates the illogical position of those opposing charter schools.
This situation brings to mind the American automakers in the early 1980s when the Japanese took away many customers due to the poor quality of cars produced by Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors. The auto companies wanted the government to limit competition by placing a cap on the number of imported cars, which would have left us with low-quality vehicles for decades to follow. The only thing that forced Ford and other companies to improve was competition. In the same way, competition from charter schools has had the exact same effect on our school districts.
Now, let’s address the claim that charters are part of a Republican agenda to privatize public schools. Is there any truth to this?
The concept of charter schools actually originated in 1974 by Ray Budde, a professor at the University of Massachusetts. However, it only gained national attention in 1988 when Al Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, gave a speech and wrote a column supporting charters. It is worth noting that Shanker was not a Republican.
In fact, Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was a strong supporter of charter schools. He even passed a federal bill that has since provided $3 billion in funding for the establishment of charter schools. The Democratic Leadership Council, which Clinton chaired before running for president, also played a role in promoting charter schools through their state chapters. Their first success came in California, where Democratic State Senator Gary Hart (not to be confused with Colorado’s Gary Hart) was able to pass the second charter school law in the nation in 1992.
In Massachusetts, it was Democratic State Representative Mark Roosevelt, who chaired the House Education Committee, that introduced charter schools in the 1993 education reform bill. Just one year later, Roosevelt became the Democratic nominee for governor.
Soon after, Ted Kolderie, a prominent activist in Minnesota, reached out to me. He informed me of his planned visit to Boston to see his son and asked if there was anyone he should meet to discuss education reform. I connected him with Roosevelt and he played an influential role in shaping the proposed legislation.
Kolderie replicated his efforts in Colorado, another state that adopted education reform early on. During a visit to Denver, he managed to convince Democratic State Representative Barbara O’Brien about the benefits of the idea, resulting in her successfully pushing a related bill through. She eventually went on to become the lieutenant governor.
It’s worth noting that even charter school critics have acknowledged Barack Obama’s significant support for them.
At the time when charter schools were first established, most Republicans were focused on raising academic standards and implementing voucher programs, which allowed public funds to be used for private education. As "New Democrats," we too recognized the need for improved standards but had concerns about vouchers. While they could be beneficial for disadvantaged children trapped in failing urban schools, we feared that widespread implementation would lead to unequal opportunities. Middle-class parents would supplement the vouchers with additional funds, affording their children more expensive education options that lower-income parents couldn’t access. This would further stratify schools based on income levels and widen the existing gaps between the rich, middle-class, and poor.
Our preference for charter schools stemmed from their ability to provide the autonomy and choice promised by vouchers, while remaining public schools. These schools were funded more equitably for all students and held accountable to public bodies for their performance. It is important to dispel the myth that chartering equals "privatization."
Although charter schools are primarily operated by nonprofit organizations rather than public ones, it does not make them private entities. Just like how private companies may build roads without classifying them as private roads, building schools through private companies does not automatically make them private schools.
The reason charter schools are considered public is due to their funding coming from taxpayers, their accessibility to all students, and their accountability to public bodies. All three aspects hold true for charter schools.
Massachusetts boasts some of the highest-performing charter schools in the nation. According to a reputable study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), which has gained recognition from charter school critics, charter school students in Boston learn the equivalent of an additional year’s worth of math and reading compared to their counterparts in traditional public schools with similar demographics. These remarkable test score gains have positively impacted thousands of children through the education reforms.
Furthermore, charter school students in Boston are far more likely to graduate from high school and attend four-year colleges compared to their peers in the traditional public school system. Many charter schools consistently send all of their graduates to college.
These achievements cannot be attributed solely to the students or parental motivation. Boston’s charter schools rely on lotteries due to overwhelming demand, and studies indicate that students whose parents are equally motivated but do not obtain a spot in the lottery tend to perform worse in traditional schools compared to those who secure a charter school seat.
It is the quality of education provided by charter schools that transforms students’ lives. Countless lives have been impacted positively by charter schools. Unfortunately, tens of thousands of students are denied access to these educational opportunities due to the influence exerted by teachers’ unions.
According to the Massachusetts Department of Education, as of last March, nearly 33,000 students were on waiting lists for charter schools. However, the proposed ballot measure would only allow for the addition of a few more schools each year, far from an overwhelming influx that threatens thousands of traditional public schools.
Senator Warren and her liberal allies need to recognize the reality. Charter schools have been a progressive endeavor for the past 25 years, initiated by reform-minded Democrats. The opposition from teachers’ unions represents a reactionary stance aimed at protecting their own interests at the expense of underprivileged children.
Surely, most liberals can agree that children from low-income backgrounds deserve the opportunity to receive a quality education and pursue higher education. When they succeed, it benefits all of us.
Correction: In a previous version of this article, inaccuracies were stated regarding the caps on charter schools in Massachusetts. The state currently limits the number of charter schools to 120 statewide. Additionally, there are spending caps in place. In the lowest-performing 10 percent of school districts, funding for charter schools cannot exceed 18 percent of the district’s total net spending for this year. In other districts, charters cannot receive more than 9 percent of the district’s net spending.
David Osborne, author or co-author of books such as "Reinventing Government" and "Laboratories of Democracy," specializes in public-sector reform. He currently directs a project on reinventing America’s schools at the Progressive Policy Institute, with a book on the subject scheduled for publication next year by Bloomsbury Publishing.
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