New rules proposed stealthily by the Department of Education, with a far shorter-than-usual window for public comment, would make it harder to open new charter schools. It could also force the closure of many existing ones. The administration says the rules are designed to encourage greater accountability and “equity,” but they probably would deter rather than encourage both goals.
Naturally, the public school bureaucracy and unions hate what they cannot control, so they strenuously oppose charters. Alas, where the bureaucracy and unions do have power is in the ascendant wing of the national Democratic Party, which once was quite open to charter schools but, out of fealty to the unions, has grown hostile, even as positive charter results keep rolling in.
Another rule requiring “diversity” of staff could result in superb white teachers becoming ineligible for jobs where they could do the most good. Another rule would require charters to “collaborate” with nearby public schools — the very schools whose failures the charters are trying to help children overcome.
As Robert Maranto, the editor of the Journal of School Choice, wrote in the March 28 New York Post, “Regulations reduce the numbers of charters started by educators of color and disproportionately shutter schools that serve students of color.” In a sharp contradiction of Biden's claims that limitations on charter schools would improve racial and economic equity, Democratic former U.S. Sen.