The U.S. Department of Education has extended the deadline for public comments about proposed regulations for the federal Charter Schools Program. This program started in 1995 with $6 million, when there were very few charter schools. Now there are more than 7,000 charters, many of them operated by for-profit corporations. The new regulations would ban federal funding to for-profit school operators and require new charters to do an impact analysis, showing the need for a new charter. Contrary to the charter industry lobbyists, no existing charter would be affected by these regulations, only new charters that seek federal funding.
Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, asks for your support:
The US DOE has extended the comment period on their proposed tough Charter Schools Regulations until April 18.
If you have not done so, take one more easy action to stop for-profit-run charters from getting federal Charter Schools Program funds.
Click HERE and send your comment to the U.S. Department of Education via the National Education Association. The NEA has made it easy to do!
If you have sent that quick message, now personalize a longer, more thoughtful commentand submit it through the Department’s portal. Here is a sample you can cut and paste.
I support the proposed rule that schools run by for-profits should not get grants. Charter schools that are run in part or whole to create profit should not benefit from federal expansion or start-up funds.
The relationship between a for-profit management organization is quite different from the relationship between our district vendors who provide a single service. A public school can sever a bus contract and still have a building, desks, curriculum, and teachers. However, in cases where charter schools have attempted to fire their for-profit operator, they find it impossible to do without destroying the schools in the process. In addition, the spending of the for-profit is hidden from public inspection and is not subject to FOIA requests.
I fully support the proposed regulation that “the community impact analysis must describe how the plan for the proposed charter school take into account the student demographics of the schools from which students are, or would be, drawn to attend the charter school.” The reporting of needs based on enrollment patterns as well as the impact on local desegregation efforts is most welcome.
In the past, one of the most segregated charter chains in the country received CSP grants. Arizona’s BASIS schools, do not provide free or reduced-priced lunch nor transportation. BASIS expects parents to make donations to subsidize teacher salaries. In a state where 52% of all students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, the percentage in BASIS schools is only 1%. While 13% of Arizona’s public school students are students with disabilities, the percentage in BASIS schools is 3%. Latinx and Black students are dramatically underrepresented in the schools in this chain. Eight Arizona BASIS charter schools were recipients of CSP sub-grants between 2010-2017 receiving over $5 million dollars.
The inclusion of an impact statement will help reviewers make the best decisions regarding which schools should get awards. The impact analysis requirements should include a profile of the students with disabilities and English language learners in the community along with an assurance that the applicant will provide the full range of services that meet the needs of all students. Too often, the neediest students are left behind in our districts, while funding leaves the schools along with students who require fewer services.
I fully support priorities one and two. They will help us get back to the original purpose of charter schools—innovative places run by teachers and families in cooperation with our local schools. I do not want my tax dollars to go to create new schools for the benefit of the big EMO and CMO chains.
Submit your comment by cutting and pasting it here.
And then keep sending those tweets by clicking here.
Thanks for all you do.
The Network for Public Education is a 501 (c)(3) organization. You can make a tax deductible donation here.
You can follow us on twitter and like us on Facebook.
Sent via ActionNetwork.org. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Network for Public Education , please click here.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The charter school grant program is funded at 440 million dollars. They WILL hand out grants totalling 440 million dollars. Whatever the requirements or priorities or changes. charters WILL receive 440 million dollars to open more charters.
So can anyone in ed reform explain how this is an attack on charter schools? They will get the same special funding they got every prior year, in total. All the administration did was put in rules to prioritize some charters over others. Since the total funding didn’t go down the federal government’s special subsidies of charter schools was not reduced.
Only in the wacky, completely innumerate world of ed reform is a subsidy amount that stays the same an “attack” on that sector.
This is about WHICH charters get a piece of the 440 million. The 440 million to charters? Guaranteed. So what ed reformers are really saying is they want to make the rules on WHICH charters get federal subsidies. The federal subsidies will go out whether the elected President makes the rules or the charter industry makes the rules.
At the end of this charter schools will be + 440 million.Without the rule changes? Charter schools will still be + 440 million. The same number of new charter schools will open. They’ll simply swap out one charter school for another, consistent with the new rules. So there could be one fewer for profit school charter school, but that proposed school will simply be replaced with a different charter school. 440 million in new charters opening no matter which rules they use.
If the total amount of funding is 440 million and a new for profit charter is put at a disadvantage all that means is a new non profit charter has an advantage.
They’ll get more non profit charters and fewer for profit charters- the total number of new charters won’t change, because the funding didn’t change.
They’ll get more charters who will work within school systems and fewer charters who refuse to, but net new charters stays the same.
Just mindboggling that the people who wrote and promoted NCLB and RttT now claim an adminstration can’t set requirements or policy priorities for public funding of new schools.
Wow. Has anyone told Bush, Obama or Trump that this was forbidden? Their signature ed reforms were based on pushing ed reform priorities through only funding ed reform priorities.
Please share on social media, if you can. Several of my friends and colleagues also sent in a written statement as well.
In other news, please read. Mr Cohen nails this.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/ukraine-russia-war-consequences/629541/
Thanks for the article. Many believe they know what has to be done in Ukraine, but nobody knows for sure. The US, however, I think should worry less about optics and concentrate on speedy, useful assistance.
Here’s a post from a business professor at NYU. He is a good writer and always interesting. His blog is No Mercy, No Malice. He puts Ukraine’s struggle into perspective with simple graphs. https://www.profgalloway.com/yachts-war/
Russia has just threatened an enormous escalation of the wary by threatening to bomb supply lines into Ukraine. An attack on a NATO state triggers Article 5.
Good piece, RT
Charter schools are the future of the country. How obvious is it that our political leaders are not the sharpest tools in the shed. Consequently our schools are run the same way our country is being run – basically run down – So, as in many other industries when the private sector takes over usually there is an improvement.
I know this is a public school site however there is some truth in the words I have spoken. .
We’d less to say, I think you are wrong. Charter schools have 7% of students. Public schools have 85-90%. Take care if the vast majority or lose out future.
Our Enlightenment Forerunners had the insight to see the critical flaw in all historical failures at democratic government, to wit, or not — If the People are to rule, then the People must be wise.
The consequence is that equally distributed education and information are not just commodities you buy so you and yours can get ahead of them and theirs — they are essential to the intelligent functioning of government and the public interest.
That is why we are supposed to have universal free public education. That is why we used to have a government operated postal service that enabled the free-flow of information at a nominal fee, not whatever price the market would bear.