Carol Burris has followed closely the development and passage of regulations written by the U.S. Department of Education for federally-funded charter schools. The regulations, she believes, are reasonable and intended to assure that charters funded by the federal government are held to standards of transparency, honesty, and accountability.
She was taken aback to learn that rightwing groups have filed suit to block the regulations. Apparently, those filing the suit think that charters should get federal money without any oversight.
She writes about it here.
Those who want a wild west of unregulated charter schools never give up. A right-wing legal defense firm called the Pacific Legal Foundation has teamed up with the Michigan charter lobby and The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation to stop the reasonable rules of the U.S. Department of Education, claiming the Department has no right to make rules regarding the program.
Here are other lawsuits in which Pacific Legal is engaging:
The two plaintiffs, the Michigan Association of Public School Academies and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, have vested financial interests in charter growth. Fordham is an authorizer of charter schools in Ohio, taking 3% of all the taxpayer dollars that the charters receive for providing “oversight.”
The argument, in its essence, is that the Department does not have the right to set up new conditions beyond what is memorialized in ESSA. If that is so, then when De Vos permitted state entities to distribute money to charter schools from their CSP grants for purposes beyond the opening and expansion of charters during the pandemic, she would have been in violation, too. Here is New York’s redistribution request that was granted. CSP funds were used for a “pandemic response,” as Betsy De Vos approved, without Congress’s permission. If the charter lobby wins this frivolous lawsuit designed to bully the Department into kowtowing to charters, perhaps taxpayers should sue to claw all of the money De Vos distributed back from charter schools.
Finally, I wonder why organizations that claim they fight for charter schools to help low-income kids succeed would run to a law firm that fights minimum wages, reduces disadvantaged kids’ chances of getting into a competitive high school, and roll back opportunities for minority-owned businesses. Perhaps their agenda has nothing to do with children at all.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How on Earth can this nation possibly function when law suits of all kinds rain every dayâ¦a real deluge. vg
It is the advanced nations that will experience something they havenât experienced since the end of WW2: a taste of poverty. Marwan Salamah
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“Perhaps their agenda has nothing to do with children at all.”
Should be a Republican slogan: “Our agenda has nothing to do with anything but our own pockets”
bingo
yup
I don’t see how a coalition of charter schools can tell the federal government how to distribute funds. The federal government changes rules and procedures all the time. Many times the objective is to improve the program or cut costs. Charter schools are not entitled to blank checks with no strings attached. The federal government is not accountable to the charter lobby, and it does not owe charter schools funding. If charter schools want access to federal dollars, they should have play by the federal rules, changed or otherwise. If they reject the rules, they can set up a “Go Fund Me” page, and try to squeeze money out of unsuspecting people. They also have the option to go to their ultra-wealthy conservative friends that could afford to fund schools for poor children.
It’s a coalition of corporate welfare queens.
A Louisiana five-year-old was allegedly forced out of her kindergarten class at a religious school because her parents are same sex. (Guardian today)
The right-wing in America wants it this way everywhere, all the time.
Unfortunately, AG Rokita is the Attorney General in Indiana. He’s a Republican.
Attorney General Todd Rokita defends liberty in education with third installment of Parents’ Bill of Rights
Attorney General Todd Rokita released the third volume of the Parents’ Bill of Rights last month — this time focusing on school choice, the liberty of parents to choose where their children attend school. The Parents’ Bill of Rights continues to highlight for parents and taxpayers the areas in which they may find gaps and omissions in state law. Future legislative priorities could include measures 1) requiring schools to make curriculum available for parents to view and 2) prohibiting curriculum that teaches the concept that people should be treated differently solely because of their race, religion, sex, or other characteristics.
“I wonder why organizations (like Fordham), that claim they fight for charter schools to help low-income kids succeed, would run to a law firm that fights minimum wages, reduces disadvantaged kids’ chances of getting into a competitive high school, and rolls back opportunities for minority-owned businesses. Perhaps their agenda has nothing to do with children at all.”
Please read “The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Institute:
Influence for Hire” by Richard Phelps, education researcher and consultant.
https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Articles/v14n6.htm