On May 14th, Representative Kevin Kiley (R-CA) held a hearing for the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, titled “Reimagining Education: How Charter Schools are Closing Gaps and Opening Doors.”
In his opening statement, Kiley noted that despite the efficacy of charter schools, stemming from the fact that they are not subject to the same regulations as public schools, progressive policymakers are attempting to hinder them by refusing to allow more charter schools to be built and by “bury[ing] them under the very bureaucracy and labor constraints that have paralyzed traditional schools.”
Kiley then promoted the “High-Quality Charter Schools Act,” which seeks to expand the number of charter schools through tax credits, specifically a 75% federal tax credit for charitable contributions made toward starting effective nonprofit charter schools. This would be an expansion of school choice for about six million students across the country.
Daryll Cobb, the president of the Charter School Growth Fund noted not only the fact that public charter schools benefit disadvantaged students, but that public charter schools in fact benefit all public school students, not just those enrolled in charter schools. This was corroborated by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s David Griffith, who, in his testimony, referenced various studies pointing to this same conclusion. In many ways, this is fairly intuitive: the introduction of competition and high-quality alternatives to traditional public schools in a given locality forces traditional public schools to keep up where they might have otherwise grown complacent in the presence of a monopoly.
Eva Moskowitz, founder, CEO, and president of National Strategy and Advancement atSuccess Academy Charter Schools, spoke about her experience: “In 2006,” she said, “I opened one school in Harlem with a simple but radical idea: that all children, regardless of race, income, or zip code, are capable of achieving at the highest academic levels if given access to excellent education. Today, Success Academy has grown into a network of 57 schools, serving more than 22,000 students from kindergarten through 12th grade, the vast majority of whom are Black and Hispanic children from low-income households. Their academic performance surpasses that of students in many of New York’s wealthiest suburbs.”
This is no easy feat: while public school bureaucracy often gets in the way of teachers being able to enforce strict standards, Success Academy has proven itself different, as charter schools, while still publicly funded, are able to circumvent red tape.
But the hearing made clear that charter schools must retain public trust in addition to educational outcomes. Some claim that charter schools can lead to segregation in schools. As a way to mitigate any such outcomes, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, a professor in the School of Education at Virginia Commonwealth University, emphasized the federal government’s role, specifically that of the Office of Civil Rights in ensuring that charter schools are diverse and open to students of all backgrounds, as critics sometimes claim they are not. School choice needs civil rights enforcement, she argued. Of course, by giving students more freedom and choices, those from less advantaged backgrounds have access to more educational opportunities. Therefore, school choice programs, including charter schools, are actually the great equalizer.
Ultimately, charter schools are an important element of educational freedom as well as education reform. As Moskowicz told Rep. James Moylan (R-GA), “Most of [the families whose children attend our schools] are trying to escape a multi-generational failing school. Their grandmother went to a failing school, and then their mother went to a failing school because that is the only option. Finally, when [Success Academy] goes into neighborhoods through charters, there is finally an option.”