Reconciling School Choice as a Reform Goal of the Left in the Age of Trump

Introduction: The Charter and Choice Movements at an Impasse

            The charter and school choice movements are currently at an impasse. While Charter Schools as a sector continue to expand and serve more and more of America’s schoolchildren, bipartisan support for school choice has declined. Democrats and Republicans traditionally supported charters in relatively equal numbers; as of 2012, 62 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of Democrats approved of charter schools. While GOP support for charters remained steady at 62 percent in 2017, the percentage of Democrats who approve of the charter sector dipped to 48 percent. (Saad, 2017) Bipartisan support for school choice emerged out of the "A Nation at Risk" Report (1983), which famously asserted that “if an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” (A Nation at Risk, 1983, p. 3) The 1980s brought with it a resounding defeat of “tax and spend” social democracy that had defined the Democratic Party platform since the New Deal Era. The Reagan Revolution ushered in a new wave of financial deregulation, a scaling back of social welfare programs, and an assault on organized labor and unions. In a political climate hostile to excessive government spending and entrenched interest groups, “ third-way” liberalism emerged in the 1990s as a strategy to make the Democratic Party more business-friendly and market-oriented. (McGuinn, 2006, p. 78) The Clinton Administration and the Democratic Leadership Council advocated for increased funding for public education while promoting public school choice in the form of charters, strong academic standards, and strict accountability measures. The New Democrats, embodied by Bill Clinton, branded themselves as committed to both educational equity and meaningful reform. They attacked the Republicans for embracing vouchers and privatization and questioned their commitment to the federal role in education. At the same time, these New Democrats displayed a willingness to stand up to the teachers’ union and traditional liberals who championed equity solely through additional resources. (McGuinn, 2006, p. 81, 85)

            The movement of the Democratic establishment to the political center allowed public school choice and charters to flourish with relative bipartisan consensus. While a faction of the GOP remained opposed to the expanded federal role in education, both parties became increasingly committed to school choice, accountability measures and sanctions for schools that did not perform, and high academic standards measured through state testing. However, the 2016 Presidential election revealed divisions within the core foundations of both major political parties. Many Democrats desire to see the party return to its roots while championing the expansion of the welfare state, universal healthcare, college for all, and a 15-dollar minimum wage.
            In a progressive climate deeply mistrustful of the financial sector and big business, it becomes increasingly difficult for Democrats to reconcile their support for charter schools. The Trump Administration’s commitment to school choice and charters only complicates matters further. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a national figurehead for the choice movement, and her record in Michigan exemplifies all the risks associated with unmitigated, unregulated, and for-profit charter expansion. In order for the charter sector to survive as a viable education policy goal of the left, Democrats in favor of school choice must reframe the narrative away from marketization, privatization, and consumer choice. They must highlight how charters and choice have the capacity to integrate our schools, provide better educational opportunities to our most vulnerable and disenfranchised children, and allow teachers and administrators the autonomy to tailor their pedagogical practices to meet the diverse needs of the students and communities they serve.

            In this analysis, I will first make the case that school choice and charters on the political “left” emerged out of the Civil Rights movement and the quest for educational liberation. Specifically, it is important to note that communities of color have long been dissatisfied with the quality of their public-school options, and that charters can serve as a social justice tool capable of restoring community control and autonomy to schools educating children of color. Next, I will examine how charters and school choice emerged out of the long legacy of business intervention in public education, and how much of the rhetoric surrounding charters on the political “center/right” echoes rhetoric used to justify school reform a century earlier. Next, I will discuss how the modern charter school movement increasingly embraces the principles of the political “right” while eschewing the aims and goals of the charter movement of the “left”. Finally, I will analyze how the Democratic Party can reframe the charter narrative in the age of Trump in a way that allows charters to remain viable on the political “left” by re-embracing the charter sector’s potential as a tool for social justice.

Community Autonomy as a Tool for Social Justice: Origins of Charters on the left

            While the origin story of the “Charter School” is somewhat ambiguous, scholars often credit Ray Budde as the movement’s ideological founder. In 1974, Budde authored a paper entitled “Education by Charter”, which he presented to colleagues at the University of Massachusetts. Budde’s original “chartering” model envisioned groups of educators petitioning their local school board for the autonomy to implement novel instructional practices within existing schools. Budde tabled this idea for over a decade until renewed interest in school reform stemming from the “A Nation at Risk” report led him to publish the paper and widely distribute it. It ended up reaching the desk of AFT President Al Shanker, who famously publicized the idea for “Charter Schools” at a speech to the National Press Club in 1988. (Kolderie, 2005, p. 1) 

            In Shanker’s view, a charter school would be a small entity run by 6-12 educators, who identified an alternative or novel pedagogical approach they felt could effectively reach the students they taught. No parent, teacher, or child would be forced into the school/subunit, and the teachers would be responsible for enrolling a racially and demographically representative pool of students and outlining a clear plan of action and assessment to be approved by the district. (Shanker, 1988, p. 13-18) The first “charter schools” emerged out of this model, consisting either of small, independent, community schools or as subunits within already established schools. As Michael Fine and Michelle Fabricant (2012) so aptly summarized, “teachers sought to create small, engaging educational settings within low-income communities, where children of poverty, of color, and immigrants could be educated well, cared for, and nurtured academically with intent.” (p. 2) Charters could be places where like-minded educators, children, and families came together to assert ownership over how their children were taught, who taught them, what they learned, and how they learned it. In this manner, charters are capable of serving as vehicles for community control of schooling, a longstanding struggle that is particularly resonant with families of color. It just so happens that Al Shanker ended up at the center of the community control debate, some two decades before his famous speech about charter schools.

            The New York City Teacher’s Strike of 1968 pitted disenfranchised communities of color against the predominantly white membership of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). In The Teacher Wars, Dana Goldstein balances the competing interests and aims of these two groups who had historically fought together in the quest for civil rights and racial justice. During an era when teachers and their unions gained extensive collective bargaining power and won substantial victories, disenfranchised communities of color became increasingly disillusioned about the promises of the Brown(1954) decision and the potential for meaningful integration. (Goldstein, 2014, p. 136) A 1968 study by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobsen demonstrated that teacher perception and biases had a substantial impact on student achievement outcomes, a result Goldstein notes “had disturbing implications for children from groups that had been historically discriminated against, who teachers might assume cannot learn at a high level.” (Goldstein, 2014, p. 137) During this same era, over 1700 children of color from the Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn received the opportunity to attend majority-white schools in other parts of Brooklyn. Children from the neighborhood who attended these schools faced hostile learning environments and educators untrained in how to effectively work with disadvantaged students of color. (Goldstein, 2014, p. 143)

Out of decades of frustration, disillusion, and dreams deferred emerged calls for school boards composed of parents and community stakeholders, a culturally competent and pedagogically appropriate teaching force willing to contribute extra work, and an Afrocentric curriculum that would better engage children with learning. (Goldstein, 2014, p. 138) Parents wanted the local board to be able to determine who worked in their child’s school, how money was spent, and how subject matter was taught. They saw the union as a hindrance to quality schools that put their children first. The standoff between the Shanker led UFT and the advocates for Community Control in Ocean Hill-Brownsville reached a crescendo when the initiative’s leader, Rhody McCoy, attempted to reassign 19 white UFT teachers out of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville schools. The largest teacher’s strike in the history of the United States emerged out of its wake, as over 60,000 UFT teachers battled against community control advocates. To this day, a section of the education reform wing argues that union protected teacher tenure laws are too strong, and that they shield teachers who ineffectively work with children of color from being dismissed. However, the enduring takeaway from Ocean Hill-Brownsville should not be the tension between the union and community advocates. It is possible to prioritize the interests of children first while also providing teachers with collective bargaining ability, decent pay, and adequate working conditions. Instead, Ocean Hill-Brownsville should be seen as one possible inspiration for the charter movement on the political left, a movement defined by social justice, local autonomy of schooling, and innovative, culturally competent pedagogy.

The Historic Legacy of Business Oriented Education Reform:

            In Marketization in Education: Looking Back to Move Forward with a Stronger Critique, Amy Stuart Wells and Jennifer Jellison Holme (2005) contend that in eras of financial deregulation and laissez-faire economic principles, the free market is perceived as the remedy for all social ills. (p. 20) This was certainly the case during the 1920s, as the American economic system shifted away from the regulatory principles that defined the progressive era and instead embraced the utility of capitalism unfettered by government intervention. Income inequality ran amok as wealth became increasingly concentrated in the hands of tycoons and financiers. (Wells & Holme, 2005, p. 21) In a socio-political climate skeptical of government bureaucracy and public institutions, business leaders believed that they could improve public education by making schools operate more like factories. Additionally, business minded reformers wanted to craft policy solutions to accommodate the influx of immigrants into the country during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Democratic control of school boards eroded as business leaders and external administrators increasingly assumed prominent advisory positions and were appointed instead of elected. (Wells & Holme, 2005, p. 23) In the minds of these leaders, public schooling would no longer serve as a mechanism for equitable educational opportunity. Education became a commodity, a tool for social stratification and mobility, which slotted children into different occupational roles based on their race, socio-economic status, and family background. During this era of business intervention in education, schools became factories where students were the products. Schools rapidly expanded in size to efficiently educate(manufacture) as many students(products) as possible at the lowest cost. Efforts to differentiate curriculum based on race and socio-economic background took effect to prepare students from the “destitute classes” for their roles on the assembly lines. (Wells & Holme, 2005, p. 26)

            While the methods employed by business-minded reformers shifted over the decades, the rhetoric underlying such school reforms largely has not. Certain business leaders, the vast majority of whom never taught in a classroom setting or worked in a school, believe that schools are identical to businesses and should be treated as such. They are skeptical of teachers, organized labor, and bureaucracy that they perceive as being inherently ineffective. In Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform, David Tyack and Larry Cuban describe how business-oriented education reforms often undergo a life cycle where they become trendy and innovative, are implemented in classrooms with little teacher coordination or buy-in, and then are abandoned once it becomes clear that the reform was ineffective. In 1970, the Nixon Administration’s Office of Economic Opportunity created a performance-contracting experiment, allowing 18 corporations to partner with 31 high need school districts across the country and spread the use of “teaching machines” and individualized learning strategies. (Tyack & Cuban, 2008, p. 497) The theory underlying this model of change was that private corporations could produce learning devices that more efficiently and effectively taught children than traditional modes of instruction. One thought leader behind the corporate teaching machine movement asserted that schools and factories were identical, and that “I view things analytically…you don’t have to love the guy next to you on the assembly line to make the product.” (Tyack & Cuban, 2008, p. 497) The Texarkana, Arkansas School District implemented one such machine, made by Dorsett Educational Systems, for use on 100 pupils deemed at risk of dropping out. Students in this experimental program walked into their classrooms and “went to pick up folders in which the teacher- called the “instructional manager”- had put the day’s assignment and a record and filmstrip for each child. Then students plugged the software into a Dorsett teaching machine, put on the headset, and logged their time onto punch cards that were used to plan the next day’s assignment.” (Tyack & Cuban, 2008, p. 496) Critics of this system and others like it contended that it undermined the utility of teachers, drastically narrowed the curriculum, and emphasized test preparation and problem drilling over real learning. Performance Contracting fell rapidly out of favor by 1975, when studies revealed that traditional teachers performed comparable to the machines, and in many instances fostered greater levels of learning. In addition, a scandal erupted when investigations uncovered that Dorsett Systems provided students the answers to the tests they would later take. (Tyack and Cuban, 2008, p. 498)

            When implementing novel technologies in the classroom, policymakers should focus on tools that will enhance the instructional ability of teachers, not attempt to undermine or replace them. If teachers are not consulted about the applicability of a classroom tool, they are much less likely to be invested in its implementation and ultimate success. (Tyack & Cuban, 2008, p. 499) Major corporate influence over education continues into the modern era. Specifically, the heads of two media giants recently introduced personalized learning systems eerily reminiscent of the ill-fated “teaching machines” of the 1970s. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dreams of a world where all children will use his software to select assignments on laptops and work at their own pace. In this model, the teacher is relegated to the role of a “classroom helper” if a student encounters difficulty and needs guidance. (Singer, 2017) “When you visit a school like this, it feels like the future- it feels like a start-up.”, Zuckerberg said. However, teachers at some of the charters who adopted this software said that with little guidance, students would often rush through the content portions of assignments and retain little information. Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, created a software based around on the company’s algorithm that tracks students’ mistakes, correct answers, and moments of hesitation to personally tailor each child’s subsequent lessons. Some skeptical educators questioned whether an algorithm could do a better job of diagnosing a student’s needs and tailoring instruction based around those needs. (Singer, 2017) It is still unclear whether these technologies improve student learning, but it is likely they will have a much higher rate of success if used to supplement rather than usurp teacher instruction.

The utility of the free market as a cure for all social ills once again rose to prominence during the 1980s and 1990s and ushered in an era of reform predicated around principles of school choice, efficiency, and high standards. In this climate, business leaders emerged as experts at the forefront of education reform. To this day they continue to employ rhetoric that treats schools like businesses and families like consumers, while disregarding the inherently interpersonal nature of learning and the importance of teacher-student relationships. This is not to say that all venture philanthropy initiatives and school choice models are inherently bad. Instead, I am arguing that the unfettered marketization of education can produce disastrous outcomes for many children when school choice is not adequately regulated and does not possess a narrowly focused social justice vision. The perils of school choice and charters are embodied by our current education secretary, Betsy DeVos, whose actions in Detroit show that school choice should never be regarded as an end in and of itself.

The Current State of Charters: A Triumph of Market Theory over Social Justice:   

            Between 1991, when the first statewide charter school law passed in Minnesota, and 2012, the charter sector expanded rapidly to serve over 2.5 million students in 43 states. (Berends, 2015, p. 161) While the first charter schools that emerged largely committed themselves to a community oriented, localized, social justice agenda, Michael Fabricant and Michelle Fine contend in Charter Schools and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education that large business interests quickly co-opted the movement and prioritized the expansion of the charter sector as agents of school choice, privatization and marketization. (Fabricant & Fine, 2012, p. 18) Fabricant and Fine divide the charter sector into three competing ideological camps: “Mom and Pop” charters, Franchise “charters”, and “Free Market” charters. Mom and Pop charters are usually single site, independent schools led by a group of educators with strong community ties, committed to filling a community niche or implementing innovative, community specific instruction. Franchise charters are similarly committed to an educational mission but are regional or even national in scope with multiple schools all unified by a particular “brand” or operating culture. Free Market charters exist primarily as mechanisms of choice for educational consumers. Their model is based around the idea that school choice will naturally spur on competition and innovation that forces the lowest performing schools to improve or become obsolete. (Fabricant & Fine, 2012, p. 21-22) It is the latter category of schools that are most dangerous to our institutions of public education, although all “Mom and Pop” charters and “Franchises” are not inherently good schools.

            Achievement gains made by children in charter schools vary significantly by region, model, methods of analysis, and interpretation of results. (Berends, 2015, p. 168) Charter schools in certain metropolitan areas like New York City and Boston tend to outscore their traditional public-school counterparts; one longitudinal study from Hoxby et al. showed that charter school 3^rd graders in New York outscored their peers in public schools by .14 standard deviations in math and .13 standard deviations in English. (Berends, 2015, p. 169) However, generally speaking, charters produce a wide variety of academic outcomes, some that are incredibly promising and beneficial and others that are deeply troubling. Studies show that as the number of charters in a state increases, the overall academic quality of the schools decreases. A report released by Stanford University indicated that “states with the most charter schools are most likely to be found in the poor performing group while states with few charters tended to cluster among the most successful.” (Fabricant & Fine, 2012, p. 25) States with the most charters often have the most relaxed charter accountability laws and caps in the country, enabling the free-market systems of choice to run rampant and largely unchecked. This is certainly the case in Michigan.

            Betsy DeVos’s appointment as Secretary of Education sparked immediate controversy due to a long record of financial contributions and lobbying for school choice and charter expansion in Michigan. Alongside former Governor John Engler, the DeVos family worked with pro-charter policy and advocacy groups like the Mackinac Center, Teach Michigan, and the Great Lakes Education Project to completely undermine Michigan’s public education system, allowing charters to relentlessly multiply and enabling for-profit Education Management Organizations (EMOs) to profit off of the enrollment of exploited and underserved children. (Binelli, 2017) The Mackinac Center was founded in 1987, and immediately committed itself to the principles of “school choice as a means of breaking up the bureaucratic monopoly of a public-education system smothering risk taking and entrepreneurial moxie.” The author of the study concluded that it was time “to put our faith in virtues that made America great in all areas that they have been tried: competition, private initiative, and of course, consumer choice.” (Binelli, 2017) Despite assertions to the contrary, efforts to make schools more like businesses and increase efficiency via private sector intervention had already been tried, and largely failed. The overhaul of Michigan’s education system certainly broke up the “bureaucratic monopoly” of public education but produced disastrous consequences for Michigan’s children.

            A 2017 study by the Brookings Institution ranked Michigan dead last in the country in terms of student proficiency growth on state assessments. Michigan, which once had an average performing K-12 system, now ranks in the bottom 10 in both reading and math achievement. Michigan has no charter cap (which limits the total number of charters that can be authorized), no accountability structure or mandated reporting system, and no statewide charter authorizing body, allowing for-profit EMOs to proliferate with reckless abandon. Eighty percent of Michigan’s charters are operated by EMOs, while the nationwide rate is 16 percent. (Binelli, 2017) EMOs receive three percent of a school’s state per pupil funding, and therefore have a very perverse incentive to keep failing schools open. In the eyes of for-profit management organizations, each student is a commodity, a price tag that follows the student regardless of the school he/she enrolls in.

A Call to Democrats to Reframe the Charter Narrative:

            In an incredibly polarized political climate, DeVos’s record in Michigan and her association with the Trump Administration makes her a natural enemy of those on the political left. As the party becomes younger, increasingly diverse, and more ideologically progressive, Democrats who favor charters and school choice recognize that they will need to reframe their messaging in order to remain credible. The 2018 mid-term elections swept many new faces into the House of Representatives and flipped the composition of many state legislative chambers. However, many of these newly elected Democrats are skeptical of school choice, charters, and efforts that they perceive as school privatization, marketization, and union-busting. One of the largest and most outspoken coalitions of school choice Democrats is the organization Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), whose 501C3 wing Education Reform Now (ERN) recently hosted their annual Philos Conference in Denver, Colorado. Prominent speakers in attendance at this year’s conference included Colorado governor-elect Jared Polis, outgoing Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy, and Obama/Clinton political strategists James Carville and Joel Benenson, among other prominent elected officials and education reform advocates.

            The speakers at the conference highlighted how they needed to distinguish themselves from the DeVos wing of the choice movement and make inroads with skeptical progressives. Carville asserted that “education reform advocates have a lot of successful stories to tell around the country. We also have to understand that there are a lot of shoddy operators out there, a lot of education flim-flam people who make money off these children and don’t care about them.” (Meltzer, 2018) While teachers generally and deservedly received recognition as “heroes”, Malloy asserted that Democrats needed the courage to stand up to the union when “poor children and black children and brown children do not get the education or the opportunities they deserve.” Anna Marcucio, a program officer with the Walton Family Foundation, wondered “how are we supposed to work with these candidates- really high profile, really high potential- in a way that is actually moving our agenda forward?” in response to the rise of Andrew Gillum and other young progressive stars in the party. (Meltzer, 2018)

Democratic charter advocates can appeal to progressives by emphasizing the movement’s original social justice mission, and its potential for pedagogical innovation and budgetary autonomy. The image of the progressive charter is one staffed and run by educators with firm community ties, who possess a deep understanding and care for the children they serve and who will hold them to the highest expectations. In A Segregating Choice, Erica Frankenberg and Genevieve Siegel-Hawley (2013) illustrate how charters often exacerbate racial and socio-economic segregation, and sometimes lack free or reduced-price lunch programs or supports for English Language Learners (ELLs) and students with individualized education program (IEP) designation. In A More Perfect Union, Janelle Scott and Amy Stuart Wells (2013) similarly contend that charters often do not serve the most vulnerable populations of children, and that a free-market and de-regulated approach to school choice enables the most mobile and affluent to assert school choice options. School choice Democrats should demand that state charter laws include affirmative steps towards achieving racial diversity, by ensuring that the racial demographics of the school are representative of the surrounding district. (Frankenberg & Siegel-Hawley, 2013, p. 133-134) They should also support expanding provisions for ELLs and students with IEPs, to ensure that charters are serving the most vulnerable student populations in equal numbers. In Promise and Peril, Charles Payne and Tim Knowles (2016) elaborate on the limitless potential of the community embedded, autonomous, charter school. Charters exert incredible sovereignty over the hiring and firing of staff, their use of time, and their use of money. (Payne & Knowles, 2016, p. 460) 
An ideal charter model would recruit and cultivate educators driven by the social justice mission of the school, use extended learning time to provide disadvantaged children with the academic and socio-emotional supports they need, and tailor funding and instructional practices to meet the distinct needs of families and communities. The highest need children would not be forced out to keep test scores high, and parents and community leaders would be regarded as equal stakeholders in school operations. Many franchise charter models have received criticism for “counseling out” students whose scores damage the reputation of the brand. As Payne and Knowles(2016) note, external Franchise operators sometimes impose themselves on historically marginalized communities of color and do not regard the community as equal partners. (p. 463)

            Efforts to force school choice on the community of Newark, New Jersey famously failed because Chris Christie, Cory Booker, and external consulting firms like DFER failed to properly engage parents and teachers in the reform process. (Russakoff, 2014) Shavar Jeffries, who is now the President of DFER, seems to have learned from some of the mistakes of his predecessors. In response to the failure in Newark, Jeffries said that “education reform comes across as colonial to people who’ve been here for decades. It’s very missionary, imposed, done to people rather than in cooperation with people.” (Russakoff, 2014) Charter advocates on the left must chart a new path forward by embracing the original social justice mission of the charter school. Charters can act as agents of local control, autonomy, and community empowerment, with the proper oversight and accountability measures in place to ensure children are learning. Charters should be celebrated for their potential to provide quality instruction to our most vulnerable and historically marginalized children and communities, and not out of profound love for market forces and consumer competition. Schools are not businesses, and education is not a commodity. Schools are places where educators and children forge deep, interpersonal relationships, built on devotion to learning and mutual trust. With the proper regulations and oversight, charters can co-exist with traditional public schools as an integral facet of our wider education system.