Across the country, public school enrollment has failed to rebound to pre-pandemic levels — and data suggests the decline is far from over.

According to projections from the National Center for Education Statistics, public K-12 enrollment peaked at 50.8 million students in autumn 2019, but is to fall by nearly 4 million students to 46.9 million by 2031, a 7.6% nationwide drop.

The enrollment losses are in elementary and middle grades, with districts in the Northeast, West and Rust Belt most affected. When public school enrollment fell by 3% in 2020, it was the largest single-year decline World War II.

The NCES 2024 December , which accounts for fall 2023 data, found that 18 states saw public school enrollment declines of more than 4%. Ten states — California, Colorado, Hawaii, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and West Virginia declined more than 5%.

A new study from Boston University that high-income districts and middle schools in Massachusetts were especially vulnerable, with middle grade enrollment in fall of 2024 down almost 8% and the most significant losses concentrated among white and Asian students.

Public school enrollment in Massachusetts was down 2% from pre-pandemic trends for the fall 2024 school year, while private school enrollment rose 14% and homeschooling surged 45%.

Long-term demographic shifts — such as falling birth rates, domestic migration and a post-COVID shift toward school choice — are also a factor in public school enrollment declines. Parents increasingly opt for private, charter or homeschooling models — options that rapidly during and after the pandemic.

A February Gallup showed that dissatisfaction with the U.S. public education system is rising, with the percentage of adults who report feeling satisfied about public education falling from 37% to 24% between 2017 and 2025.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools a net gain of 400,000 students over five years, offsetting some of the 1.8 million student losses from traditional districts.

Public school funding, often tied to enrollment, is also shrinking. According to the Reason Foundation, 98 public schools in 2023-24 across 15 states, with significant losses in California, Colorado, Florida and New York. Districts are facing tough decisions around school consolidations, staffing and infrastructure.

ProPublica reported that shrinking enrollment roughly 150 Chicago schools operating at half-capacity this past school year, with another 47 at one-third capacity.

However, some researchers offer a more nuanced view. A Kennesaw State University researcher that declining enrollment can lead to higher per-student funding. Since districts often retain funding for students who’ve left, those resources can be reallocated to support remaining students, improving staff compensation and access to teachers and other support services.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

But Starlee Coleman, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, is less concerned about such “ivory tower” questions. She’s worried about whether the nation’s nearly 8,000 charter schools will be able to pay their bills. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, backed by the , argues that it’s essentially a private organization. If the court agrees, it could disrupt funding to charter schools across the country. 

“Every single state constitution in this country requires per-pupil funding to be spent only on public schools,” Coleman said. The argument that charter schools are private, she said, could “turn off the money that they want.”

In recent months, the Alliance has been bracing for a decision that could throw the charter sector into what Coleman called “operational uncertainty.” If the court declares that charters are not “state actors,” she said, federal and state funding for the schools, which serve nearly 4 million students, could be in jeopardy. Red states looking to expand school choice may be eager to sort out the legislative challenges and potential lawsuits that follow. But blue states, where leaders already want to , might be more reluctant. 

“I live in Texas. We’ll figure it out,” she said. But if states like New York, California and Massachusetts stop funding students at charter schools, Coleman asked, “Where do those kids go?”

In Colorado, state funding covers 98% of costs for the roughly 1,000 students who attend Loveland Classical Schools, said Executive Director Ian Stout. Without that funding, the two sites would likely have to close. If he had to charge tuition, most families, Stout said, couldn’t afford it. 

The of another scenario: If the court rules charters are private, school districts could just absorb existing charter schools to keep them public, or at least add more government oversight. But that would mean the loss of flexibility that has defined the sector since charter schools began in 1991.

“As public charter schools, we knowingly embrace that grand bargain —  public funds and local autonomy for accountability,” Stout said. Giving that up, he said, “would be counterproductive to the original intent of school choice.”

It’s already challenging to run charters in a progressive states like California, where the politically powerful blames charters for enrollment loss in district schools, said Rich Harrison, CEO of Lighthouse Community Public Schools. The network of four schools serves low-income minority students in East Oakland. If St. Isidore wins, he wonders if the public view of charters overall would suffer. 

“Operators like us, who are trying to do really important work in urban blue states, are going to be faced with much more scrutiny,” Harrison said. “We’re going to be lumped into this agenda on the right, which isn’t helpful at all for the communities we serve.”

‘Against their wishes’

Derek Black, a constitutional law professor at the University of South Carolina, agrees the financial fallout from a decision in favor of St. Isidore could be great. But instead of states abandoning charter schools, he’s concerned the court could force “states to fund [religious] schools against their wishes.”

He argues that because charters are “state actors,” one with an explicitly religious mission would violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. 

Even if the decision falls in their favor, St. Isidore’s leaders have already decided . A late-June ruling, they said, wouldn’t give them enough time to enroll families in the online program, hire staff and make other preparations for the 2025-26 school year.

But other advocates for religious charters are getting ready to act if the court opens the door to private charter schools.

“I would love to be able to apply for 100 Jewish religious charters,” said Peter Deutsch, a former Congressman from Florida and founder of the Ben Gamla network of Hebrew language charter schools. 

He dismisses concerns from the Alliance that a ruling in favor of St. Isidore would cause states to turn their back on charter schools, calling them “an integral part of the American educational experience.”

While a Democrat, he agrees with conservatives that charter schools can practice religion. Such a ruling, he said, would “be transformative.” The vast majority of non-Orthodox Jewish students currently . 

“This has the potential to literally change the Jewish community in America in a significant meaningful way — more so than anything in my lifetime,” he said.

St. Isidore promised to accept students of any religion even though it plans to fully teach the Catholic faith. But Deutsch said Orthodox Jews might have a problem with accepting those who don’t follow their religion. 

“There is definitely a question of an Orthodox school allowing non-Jews to be in their school,” he said. “I don’t know how they’re going to deal with it.” 

Leaders of the Catholic church support St. Isidore’s argument. In to the court, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops argued that educating students is “not a traditional, exclusive public function” and that in early American history, private, religious schools worked with the government to provide schooling. 

The brief also touted recent results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress showing that Catholic schools perform higher in math and reading than public schools. The “data shows why Oklahoma would want to contract with a school like St. Isidore for charter-school services,” the brief said.

But some Catholic school leaders have strong reservations about how a ruling in favor of St. Isidore would impact religious schools.

Greg Richmond, superintendent of the Archdiocese of Chicago Catholic Schools, said religious school leaders that want to open a charter should brace themselves for giving up some control in exchange for public funds. As the founder of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, he’s intimately familiar with how the system works. 

“It’s not going to be just an infusion of cash,” he said. 

In a February post for the blog, he described scenarios that could create dilemmas for religious leaders. Could Catholic charters punish students for not attending mass? Could they fire a teacher who announces in class that he’s an atheist? He answered “no,” explaining that such outcomes would create “a lite version” of existing parochial schools.

“I actually don’t think anyone really knows how it would play out in this country,” he said. “I’m sure the courts would get pulled in again and again to mitigate some of the conflicts.” 

Disability rights advocates also warn that students could lose special education services if  charter schools are ruled to be private. St. Isidore’s says it might not accept students with disabilities whose services would “significantly alter the regular classroom process,” and that services or accommodations for students can’t be “in opposition to church teaching.”

Under the , school districts provide “equitable services,” like speech therapy, to students in private schools. Parents who choose private schools can also request a district to pay for an evaluation. But there’s no guarantee that the private school will accommodate students’ needs. 

“There’s no individualization,” said Jennifer Coco, interim executive director of the Center for Learner Equity, a nonprofit that advocates for students with disabilities in charter schools. “Whenever something that was public becomes private with regards to children, rights under IDEA, by and large, do not follow.” 

However the Court rules, the first state to grapple with its effects will be Oklahoma, where the legal battle began. Even before the justices agreed to hear the case, Barry Schmelzenbach, director of the Oklahoma Public Charter School Association, began talking with lawmakers about legislative fixes that might be necessary. He wants to prevent a situation in which “a system providing education for 50-some thousand students across the state all of a sudden can’t make payroll” because it’s been cut off from public funds.

But Schmelzenbach finds reassurance in the state’s strong history of support for school choice.

“Neither side of the debate wants to see existing charter schools harmed,” he said. “If our funding goes, then there’s also no funding for new charter schools — sectarian or not.”

Her announcement last month to leave the position she’s held since 2012 comes as charter schools enter a new era — one marked by dwindling public school enrollment and an explosion of new school choice options. 

 Those who have studied charters see a challenging landscape ahead for the sector, which was born in Minnesota 31 years ago. 

“The coming decade will see an incursion on charters from both the traditional and the new-choice side,” said Macke Raymond, founder and director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University. “Nina didn’t have to cope with a double-sided battleground. The next leader will have to.”

Rees, whose family fled Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime in Iran when she was 14, was encouraged by Howard Fuller, the Alliance’s founding board chair, to apply for the president and CEO job when the organization launched in 2005. But at the time she was part of the U.S. Department of Education under President George W. Bush, working to get another school choice initiative off the ground. 

She was in pushing the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship through Congress. The federally funded , which pays tuition at private schools, served about 1,700 low-income students last year, roughly half those who applied. Republicans want to increase funding for the program, while have long wanted to phase it out.

Rees, however, has left her greatest mark in the charter world. 

Rhonda Dillingham, executive director of the North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools, called Rees the movement’s “north star.”

Rees hasn’t wavered in her belief that charter schools are public and have a duty to uphold students’ civil rights — an issue that came before the 4^th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals last year. A North Carolina charter school argued that it should be able to enforce a strict dress code including skirts for girls just because it was run by a nonprofit. 

And Michael Petrilli, president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said Rees and the Alliance have been “hawks” on the issue of low-performing virtual charter schools, calling on authorizers in 2015 to “dramatically improve oversight of their schools, which, in some cases, will mean closing them.” 

As Raymond noted, whoever replaces Rees at the Alliance will face new obstacles. Education savings accounts, which pay for private school tuition and homeschool expenses, have rapidly expanded in multiple states, giving families more options outside of the public education system. And as the North Carolina case, Peltier v. Charter Day School, raised, there’s an ongoing debate over whether charters are public or private under the law. Those who say charters are private argue there should be no limits on religious organizations running schools. The fate of a virtual Catholic charter in Oklahoma, set to open in the fall of 2024, is now tied up in court. 

“The notion of charters being considered private … is something that we will fight,” Rees said in a recent conversation with ����Ӱ��. 

She’s also persistently fought for increased funding for the federal Charter Schools Program and pushed hard last year against the Biden administration’s efforts to make it more difficult to apply for that money. She argued that the administration didn’t seek input from sector leaders when writing the rules. 

The new regulations call for charters to be more racially balanced and for operators to gain support from traditional schools, which can be difficult when there is competition for students. Organizers also need to avoid opening in neighborhoods where district schools are losing enrollment.

The new rules were also intended to create more transparency when charter funds flow to for-profit companies. They drew support from who argue that the involvement of for-profit businesses in operating charters — especially virtual schools — creates the potential for fraud.

Rees’s leadership of the sector’s principal advocacy organization has coincided with increased quality. CREDO’s most recent report showed students in charters, particularly those in large networks, slightly outperform their peers in traditional schools. 

In the interview, Rees spoke about those findings, the shifting political environment on school choice and her future interest in helping others realize, as she did, opportunity in America. 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

����Ӱ��: Why leave now?

Nina Rees: With anyone who’s been working in an organization, after 10 years you start to evaluate if you want to stay for another five or 10 or if it’s time to move on. I have accomplished a lot of the things I set out to do. When I came to this organization the Charter Schools Program was only getting $254 million and different charter groups were fighting with one another to capture a portion of that pie. Increasing the pie united the sector and made sure that everyone receives something from the federal grant. The funding is at $440 million. I was hoping it would hit $500 million, but $440 million is a good place to be.

The other goal was to get charters in 50 states — we are now at 46 — and just to stabilize the organization as a hub of information for the sector. I’ve gone through three different administrations, from President Obama to President Trump and now to President Biden. That’s a lot of turmoil, with the pandemic in between. I think it’s time for some fresh thinking. Post-pandemic, we have some huge opportunities to seize because so many families continue to want options. Charter schools have a role to play in meeting that demand.

You’ve seen political support for charters shift dramatically during your tenure with the Alliance. Without the bipartisan base as strong as it once was, did your job become more difficult? 

It was getting difficult to navigate when I came, but I’d like to answer this question differently. In the latest Democrats for Education Reform poll, and every poll that we’ve seen over time, and charter schools in particular. At the top level, there’s not as much discussion around charter schools in a bipartisan way. The education reform debates are no longer as central as they used to be, with the pandemic shifting attention to other priorities. The Democratic and Republican parties are fraying and the opposite ends are getting more airtime, but the reality is that the center still holds. It’s in the center where policy is made. So regardless of the and the , most of what’s happened over the past decades since I’ve been at the federal level , with the support of Democrats like Cory Booker and Michael Bennet and Republicans like Virginia Foxx.

It seems Republicans are more focused on expanding education savings accounts than they are charters. How do you see that playing out at the state level?

We’re monitoring to see how those ESA laws are being implemented. But there was also a lot of momentum around charter schools. Post pandemic, we saw a slew of legislative activity, from to access to facilities to huge improvements in states like Arkansas. Even found a way to allow for charter school expansion. 

ESAs are new and more controversial. They get more media attention, and these other measures, which are amendments to existing laws, are not getting as much airtime. Once the history books are written, people are going to look at these years as pivotal for charters.

And how do you see the growth of ESAs affecting the charter sector? 

In most of these states, it looks like they’re just subsidizing the tuition of private schools students already attend. But in those places where the allocation for the ESA is on par or potentially a little bit higher than what students in charter schools get, that’s where we might want to study and see if there are any shifts. 

One of the biggest charter school stories of the year — and in education in general — has been the Catholic virtual charter school application in Oklahoma. What are your predictions for the debate over religious charter schools? 

Let’s go back to where we were about six months ago when the was pending before the Supreme Court. We were questioning whether that case [which asked whether charters were public or private] would pave the way for religious charter schools. The court chose not to take the case and we’re very pleased with that. For charters to be able to teach religion, you need a proactive statement that deems them private, and that is a point of contention. Everyone who has drafted a charter law and everyone involved in conceptualizing charter schools created these schools in order to create better public schools. 

In school choice circles, we sometimes hear the message that parent satisfaction is the most important measure of success. Do you feel that there’s been a shift away from holding charters accountable for results? Did the pandemic play a part there? 

That’s a great question. I do think we need to take stock of the accomplishments before we pivot to the flaws in the equation. The Macke Raymond of CREDO did the study, we weren’t doing that well. The , it was a little bit better. The of her study definitively demonstrates that the longer our school leaders are in this work, the better they do by the students they’re serving. 

There’s always been debate around whether standards-based accountability and standardized tests get in the way of innovation and potentially harm those types of schools that serve special populations. Over time, state accountability systems have adjusted so they’re not inadvertently discouraging the creation of a credit recovery school or a school that serves a student population that is way behind academically. 

Paying attention to what parents want is very important, and I know that the choice movement is talking a lot more about that. But at the end of the day, the compact with the authorizer is very important. That’s where the rubber hits the road. If charters are not performing well or meeting the terms of their contract, they should be closed.

I don’t know any parents who want to send their child to a school that is not going to graduate them and send them to college.

Along with ESAs, we also see more microschools emerging that are responding to very specific needs and preferences for families. Do you see those models impacting charters?

This is an opportunity for charter schools. When you notice that people have an affinity or an interest in smaller settings that are offering a more customized education, this means charter management organizations can create some of these and see how it works without letting go of all the other things that we need to do as public schools. In the private sector, if there’s an interest to buy certain things, companies start to compete. The charter sector can also create models that are just as attractive but keep the core of what is public about public education. 

Charter enrollment saw a big jump during the pandemic and leveled off a bit last year. How do you think the general decline in public school enrollment we’ve seen nationally is affecting charters?

Our enrollment report is coming out in November, so stay tuned. We’re pretty excited about it. That’s the only thing I can say.

There are two things going on. One is that populations are shifting. This is why we’re so excited about having passed a charter law and the fact that in , you can now open a charter school anywhere around the state. States have made changes that allow charters to open in jurisdictions where populations are shifting. 

People are just dispersing more and that presents a challenge. If you have a model in one community, it’s quicker to scale it and add more students. But if you’re going into these more suburban and rural communities, it’s a little bit more challenging to take this work to scale. For me, it’s going back to the basics; charter schools were always supposed to be about giving local community leaders the tools they need to start something new and different. This opens the door to innovation in ways that are good for the sector. 

You’re not sure what you’re doing next, but what would you like to do?

I love this topic of choice and charters, but I also am fascinated with around the American dream. I’d like something that combines what I’ve done here with adding to the hope and the opportunity of the American dream, with education being one of the key pillars. I like this sector because it invites innovation and big-picture thinkers who are willing to overcome the impossible. Whatever I do next hopefully will continue to be with individuals in service to something that’s transformational.

To some, the congressman from New York is a rising star in the party. But he’s no stranger to the charter school community. 

“We have been able to consistently rely on his support for a decade,” said Nina Rees, CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

As his profile in the party has risen, however, Jeffries has grown less outspoken on the subject. Now responsible for uniting progressives and moderates, observers say he’s less likely to take a firm stance.

Jeffries probably won’t enthusiastically endorse charter schools because of the Democrats’ “need for teachers union support,” said Ray Ankrum, superintendent of Riverhead Charter School on Long Island. But, “if he goes on an Obama-like ascension — which it looks like he can — maybe he’ll be more vocal for school choice.”

The Brooklyn native’s transition to party leader comes at a pivotal moment for the charter community. Advocates and school operators say the Biden administration’s recent changes to a federal grant program for charters will hinder growth. A lawsuit challenging the public status of charter schools and a new openness toward religious charters in Oklahoma could further disrupt the sector. Advocates say they would welcome more public support, but still view Jeffries as an ally.

“To me, he gets it — what’s possible for people of color to start a school,” said Yomika Bennett, executive director of the New York Charter Schools Association. “To dust off an old term, there’s hope.”

In 2014, Jeffries voted for to increase federal funding for charter schools. He visited schools in the Success Academy network and participated with CEO and founder Eva Moskowitz in a 2016 Brooklyn event where thousands rallied for the city to increase the number of charters.

“Everyone in this city, every parent, every child, deserves to have an option, regardless of race, regardless of color, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of immigration status, regardless of ZIP code,” he told the crowd.

And two years later, the Alliance honored him with one of its first #BringTheFunk awards for Black charter school advocates. Jeffries could not be reached for comment.

‘An intra-party debate’

But those examples seem to be part of the distant past.

David Houston, a George Mason University assistant professor, who studies the politics of education, isn’t surprised.

“It doesn’t shock me that Democratic elected officials — especially those who are appealing to a broader swath of their constituency — are going to downplay charters as a key pillar of their education platform,” he said. “Charter schools were never wildly popular [with Democrats]. There’s always been an intra-party debate.”

Charters enjoyed more bipartisan support prior to the Trump administration. President Barack Obama as “incubators of innovation” and urged states to on the number allowed. 

The partisan gap in support for charters grew during the Trump years, Houston found, in part because Betsy DeVos, Trump’s education secretary, was a “reviled figure on the left.”

New charter rule

Recently, that tension resurfaced in the debate over the U.S. Department of Education’s new rule for its . The update urges charters to partner with their local schools, requires more transparency in funding and expects operators to justify creating new charters when local public schools are under-enrolled. Department officials say their goal is to increase accountability and promote more racially diverse schools. 

But critics argued the changes will hamper the growth of smaller operators who predominantly serve Black and Hispanic students — even after the department revised some provisions after backlash from charter leaders.

Now chair of the education committee in the GOP-led House, Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina said in a statement to ����Ӱ�� that she hopes Jeffries will “urge his conference to support charter schools” and help students by “ending the Biden administration’s harmful anti-charter school rule.”

Last May, some Democrats in the Senate might have agreed with her. 

Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Diane Feinstein of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey joined Republicans in telling Education Secretary Miguel Cardona that the rule — as it was originally written — would “add significant burdens and time to an already complex application process.”

By the December vote in the Senate, however, the political winds had shifted. No Democrat voted to overturn it.

The updated requirements, in fact, could give pro-charter Democrats, like Jeffries “more freedom to support increased … funding,” said Halley Potter, a senior fellow at the progressive Century Foundation. 

That’s because the rule requires charters to disclose any contracts with for-profit entities. Ankrum, the superintendent of the Long Island school, said he doesn’t view Jeffries as anti-charter — just being heavily involved in running them. 

“That,” he said, “seems to be the new Democratic push.”

The Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City plans to apply this month to operate a virtual charter, acting on a recent state that says religious organizations shouldn’t be prohibited from doing so. The state’s Virtual Charter School Board could make a decision as soon as mid-February.

Advocates for religious charters said they began planning their strategy over a year ago as the conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court began to flex its judicial muscle. For the second time in two years, the court agreed to hear a school choice case and later sided with Maine families seeking to use tuition vouchers to attend religious schools.

“We’re not idiots. We know how things are going to play out,” said Brett Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, which focuses on how public policy impacts the church. “We’ve looked at all the [school choice] options out there. Expanding charter options has always been on the short list.”

Even though it’s non-binding, the opinion from now-former state Attorney General John O’Connor and Solicitor General Zach West moves the discussion over religious school choice into a new arena. Recent Supreme Court rulings prohibit states from excluding religious groups from school choice programs. But allowing sectarian instruction in a public school, some legal experts say, goes too far. “Catastrophic” is how Derek Black, a University of South Carolina law professor, described it in .

With charter leaders expecting similar moves in other states, some advocates worry the new direction could splinter a movement that has already drawn frequent criticism

“Public schools have never been able to, and cannot now, teach religion, require attendance to religious services or condition enrollment or hiring on religious beliefs,” said Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Supreme Court precedent regarding public funding for private schools, she added, “simply does not apply to public charter schools.”

Farley said he expected that kind of opposition, but also sees “green lights all around for the movement to press ahead.” 

In Louisiana, for example, charter leaders are watching to see what unfolds in Oklahoma.

“We’ve got large Catholic schools. We’ve got Pentecostals. We’ve got Baptists. We’ve got it all going on,” said Caroline Roemer, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools. “Absolutely, we’ll see some applicants that lean in on that opportunity.” 

In Oklahoma, Farley said the archdiocese was further encouraged last year when it looked like voters would re-elect Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, a fervent proponent of school choice. Farley consulted Nicole Stelle Garnett, a University of Notre Dame law professor and leading voice for religious charter schools. She is also a colleague of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who taught at the law school.

That sparked the Oklahoma City archbishop’s November 2021 letter to the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, asking if it would consider an application from the archdiocese. The board then sought the attorney general’s opinion.

While some Catholic schools around the country previously converted to charters, they only provide a secular education. For example, Barrett, a conservative Catholic, is affiliated with a church group that has helped . And some Hebrew language charter schools in their afterschool programs. But Black said there’s a big difference between a faith-based organization running a secular charter — likely allowed under the Supreme Court’s rulings in and — and one that would, as Farley said, weave Catholicism into its entire curriculum.

What Farley describes, Black said, “does not involve discrimination based on religious status. Rather, it involves someone who wants to change public education into religious education.”

The U.S. Department of Education did not comment on the potential application.

says a charter school must be “nonsectarian in its programs, admissions policies, employment practices, and all other operations” and “not affiliated with a sectarian school or religious institution.” 

Black said that, if approved, the archdiocese’s school would violate the Constitution’s ban on government support of religion. 

“I don’t believe even this [Supreme Court] would say that is OK,” he said.

Farley countered there’s no such thing as a “values-free” education and that parents should be able to choose a religious or secular education for their child. A virtual charter, he said, would satisfy a growing demand for Catholic education, particularly in rural areas where parishes lack sufficient students to open brick-and-mortar schools.

‘In the name of the state’

The debate elevates the importance of a recent 4th Circuit Court of Appeals case that focuses on whether charter schools are public or private.

The that charter schools — even those run by nonprofits — act on behalf of the state, just like traditional schools. But Charter Day School in Leland, North Carolina, unsuccessfully argued that it had the flexibility to adopt its own dress code requiring girls to wear skirts. Families sued, saying the rule violated girls’ civil rights.

The school has appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, and on Monday, the for an opinion from the U.S. solicitor general, who would argue the case for the Biden administration if the court accepts it.

Regardless of whether charter managers and employees work for nonprofit or religious organizations, the organization authorizing the charter is still “acting in the name of the state,” said Black, who sees the potential for “massive constitutional violations” if states allow charters that explicitly endorse religious instruction.

Oklahoma’s charter association said it is still reviewing the state’s opinion to determine its impact. The national Alliance, meanwhile, has a “legitimate concern” about backlash from blue states, where support for charters is already tenuous, Farley acknowledged. In fact, Black said if courts allow religious charters, states that don’t want them would have no recourse but to eliminate their charter laws.

“You could see states like Massachusetts, California or New York saying, ‘If courts are going to force religious charters on us, we will get rid of them,’ ” he said.

Between 2006 and 2020, 1.4% of schools with a grant from the Charter Schools Program closed, compared to 2.3% of schools without the funding. And within 12 years, schools with a grant were about half as likely to close as those without one. 

But echoing the results of on the program, the Government Accountability Office found that states awarded about $152 million in grants to 638 charter schools that closed or never opened — representing about 14% of those that received grants. 

Even so, charter school supporters welcomed the GAO’s main takeaway.

“This finding only underscores the need to increase funding for the [Charter Schools Program] so that more charter schools have access to start-up funds and planning grants,” said Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. 

The report is the latest to respond to questions from policymakers about the program’s effectiveness as the Biden administration moves to implement tighter rules for grantees. Charter supporters argue the updated regulations, which seek to create more racially balanced schools and increase transparency, would limit growth. But critics say grant recipients waste taxpayer dollars when they close or never open. asked for both the GAO report and an earlier one from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General. 

The Inspector General found that charter operators opened about half of the schools that they promised. Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, wrote in an that the report also drew attention to “sloppy record keeping and weak oversight” of the program. 

The GAO focused on the sustainability of schools that opened, comparing similar schools that received grants with those that did not. 

It found that the pattern of grant-receiving schools remaining open longer was consistent regardless of grade levels and student poverty and whether the schools were urban, suburban or rural. The results also held true in the three states that received the most funding from the program — California, Florida and Texas.

California saw a more dramatic spike in schools closing after nine years if they didn’t receive a grant. Ana Tintocalis, spokeswoman for the California Charter School Association, attributed the difference to additional quality measures that grant recipients must meet to receive funding. 

Increased closure rates, she added, also likely stem from demographic shifts and the high cost of living and working in the state. 

“The biggest reasons for closures across the state tend to be difficulty securing facilities and low enrollment, which impact our urban schools the most,” she said.

When GAO researchers interviewed officials in seven states, they found financial mismanagement and a lack of community support were also among the top reasons why charter schools close, whether or not they receive a federal grant.

A year ago, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers released highlighting how states have used grant funds to support school districts, mayor’s offices, nonprofits and other institutions that approve and renew charter school applications. 

Karega Rausch, president and CEO of the organization, said the GAO’s report reflects“meaningful changes” in policies since then that have “led to increased accountability.” 

In some cases, that means stopping a planned charter from opening,” he said, and “closing an existing charter school that doesn’t live up to their promises to students, communities and taxpayers.”

But that compromise hasn’t stopped advocates in two states and members of Congress from trying to remove the remaining changes to the $440 million Charter Schools Program. They argue that the tighter criteria run counter to the law’s intent to increase high-quality charter schools. 

Republicans want to use the — a seldom-used law that allows members to overturn regulations issued by federal agencies — to stop implementation. And in August, charter organizations in Michigan and Ohio over changes that, among other things, are designed to create more racially diverse charter schools and increase transparency for schools run by for-profit companies.

Advocates say they never had a chance to weigh in on the changes.

“If you read the [charter school] statute, there is the importance of consulting with the field,” said Nina Rees at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “They never did. They introduced the rule without notifying us.”

The revisions urge charters to partner with their local schools and to prove they’re not opening in communities where local public schools are under-enrolled. The Alliance was among the more than 26,000 groups and individuals that submitted comments on the new rule. So did Louisiana state Superintendent Cade Brumley, who sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona expressing his opposition.

“In this moment in history, we should not be restricting options for families,” he told ����Ӱ��. 

“We should be expanding them.” 

Even so, the state is among the 10 that applied for funding last month. Brumley said the funding is an “important selling point” for attracting high-quality charter operators. 

The department also received eight applications from developers who want to launch or expand schools and 15 applications for “national dissemination” grants, a separate fund that the secretary can award to groups, like the Alliance, that support charters. 

The department is expected to announce grant recipients by Friday, and will open up applications for charter management organizations later this fall.

On Wednesday, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the Ohio plaintiff in the lawsuit, released that takes a closer look at results for charters in the state that outsource some or most operations to for-profit companies. Such arrangements draw fire from those opposed to commercialism in education. 

The researchers found some advantages of such schools. They spend $581 more per student in the classroom and $699 less per student on administrative costs than charters that don’t contract with for-profit operators — and students also get more instructional time.

But for-profit and virtual schools, they wrote, also “deserve extra scrutiny.” They have more first-year teachers, higher chronic absenteeism and lower student achievement.

“We shouldn’t view for-profit charter schools as a monolith,” Fordham’s Amber Northern, senior vice president for research, and President Michael Petrilli wrote in the foreword. “We need to focus on their academic progress with students, not the tax status of their primary vendor.”

Going after government overreach 

Many Democrats, however, want to see for-profit charters . Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, said the department’s changes increase accountability. 

With Democrats in control of Congress, Rees noted that there’s little chance Republicans would succeed this year in using the Congressional Review Act. Even if they were able to pass it, President Joe Biden would veto it.

But if Republicans take the House in the midterm elections, Burris said they could try to use the procedure again next year. 

During the Trump administration, Republicans used the legislative strategy in education twice in 2017 — to end an Obama-era requirement that states rate teacher preparation programs and to grant more flexibility in how they designed their accountability programs under the Every Student Succeeds Act.

The Republicans’ current attempt to use the Congressional Review Act, led by Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, “shows a clear understanding from the people who actually wrote the law that what the department has done here is unlawful,” argued Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian law firm representing the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit. 

The 2015 expansion of the program, he added, “pointedly left no room for the Department of Education to add in new criteria or conditions for grant applicants.”

The lawsuit, meanwhile, seeks to capitalize on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this year in which the conservative majority restricted the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to set limits on carbon emissions. 

Republicans as a way to curb government overreach in other federal agencies as well.

Kruckenberg said he hopes the case brought by the states will “set a legal precedent clearly declaring that any rule issued by the department to try to set new criteria for the [Charter Schools Program] would be unlawful. 

The state complaint argues that charters affiliated with the Michigan Association of Public School Academies and the Fordham Institute will have a hard time meeting the new criteria. The schools predominantly serve minority students, are located in districts that have “demonstrated hostility to charter school expansion” and won’t be able to prove that district schools are “overenrolled.”

The Biden administration has to respond to the complaint by Oct. 12. 

For now, Burris said she’s more concerned Republicans could use the Congressional Review Act to roll back changes than she is the litigation. “It will weave through the courts,” she said, “so that is a good thing.”

The report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General — focusing on more than $963 million in awards made from 2013 through 2016 — notes that while the law doesn’t require officials to track how many schools open after grants expire, reporting that information would make it easier to gauge the program’s effectiveness.

The report said that without such information, the department, Congress and the public “cannot reach conclusions on whether the [program] increased the number of high-quality charter schools in operation and taxpayers received a worthwhile return on their investments.”

The report comes as the department prepares to announce a new round of funding for applicants under a controversial revision of the program’s guidelines designed to increase transparency and diversity. Opponents say the new rule will limit growth.

The inspector general’s office recommends that the department monitor whether schools remain open after federal funding runs out and improve data collection. Department officials and charter school supporters agreed with some, but not all, of the findings. 

Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said as the charter sector continues to grow, it is important for the department “to have high-quality data on how its grants are supporting it and to support the program in the future where the demand is the greatest.”

The department disagreed with the recommendation that it follow whether schools stay open for two years after grants expire, but said it has already taken steps to improve oversight of grants and hosts “office hours” to help grantees complete performance reports. 

Both the department and Rees noted that the grant program substantially changed during the time period reviewed. Under No Child Left Behind, only states received charter grant funds. The Every Student Succeeds Act,  which included changes that didn’t fully take effect until 2017, expanded the range of agencies and organizations eligible to receive funding, such as governors’ offices and school boards. 

The report noted that as of March 2, 29 of the 94 grantees that received funds during the four-year period still had extensions to spend the money — which means more schools could still open. The report did not reflect that some grantees applied for additional funds to open more schools than originally planned, Rees said.

Critics of charter schools, meanwhile, said the findings back up their concerns about quality control. The Network for Public Education issued that concluded roughly 867,000 students were “displaced when their charter schools closed.”

Carol Burris, executive director of the group, said the Inspector General’s report “exposes the sloppy record-keeping, inaccurate reporting and exaggerated claims made by grantee states and charter management organizations.”

She applauded the Biden administration for its efforts to increase accountability. 

The Inspector General noted that it did not set out to identify issues that may contribute to charter growth or closures. The department addressed the issue, noting that state caps on the number of new charters, limited access to facilities or grantees receiving fewer applications from operators than expected are important to consider.

The report, wrote Mark Washington, deputy assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education,, “does not acknowledge national trends concerning barriers that have constrained charter school growth and expansion.”

The U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday posted two notices for grants under the Charter Schools Program — one for and another for those charter schools. The announcements reflect new rules meant to create more racially diverse schools and increase transparency when for-profit companies are involved in running them. The deadline is Aug. 5, giving states far less than the four months they’ve had to apply in previous years.

The regulations represent a compromise between the Biden administration, which wanted to limit competition between a growing charter sector and traditional schools, and advocates who argued that such schools play an important role in meeting students’ needs after the pandemic.

Karega Rausch, president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, described the new rules as “workable,” but said he remains concerned about a requirement that new charters be racially and socioeconomically diverse — or explain why they’re not. The rule says operators must note how their charter school won’t “hamper, delay or negatively affect any desegregation efforts in the local community.”

The provision “places additional unnecessary and unwarranted burdens on schools proposing to serve large proportions of lower-income students and students of color,” Rausch said. “And there is no clarity on what constitutes a valid desegregation effort and how applicants will know if any effort exists.”

In March, the department posted a draft of the rule for the $440 million program, which provides start-up and expansion funding for charters. It sparked immediate backlash from the charter school community, with advocates arguing that it would squash growth, especially among smaller, independent operators unaffiliated with charter management organizations. Three Democrats in the Senate and a bipartisan group of mayors later joined opposition to the new rule, and charter supporters outside the U.S. Department of Education and the White House May 11, telling the Biden administration to “back off.” Department officials say the rule is meant to increase accountability, prevent charters from closing because of insufficient demand and promote integrated schools.

“We are at our strongest as a nation when we embrace the rich diversity across our country,” Anna Hinton, director of the program at the department, wrote in a Friday about the final version. “Federal resources should not be used to increase racial or socioeconomic segregation and isolation.”

Work from the Century Foundation contributed to the department’s revision. In 2019, the progressive think tank ways the program could increase diversity. While many urban charter schools predominantly serve Black or Hispanic students, others in suburban communities mostly white students, data shows.

Stefan Lallinger, a senior fellow at the organization, said not all charters “take proactive steps” to attract a diverse student body. 

“In some instances, particularly in what are known as ‘white flight academies,’ some charter schools actually exacerbate segregation in a given region,” he said, adding that while the new rules won’t prevent “hypersegregated” schools, they “represent real progress, and signal a growing recognition among education leaders that they should be part of the solution.” 

In her blog post, Hinton said the department recognizes that some charters exist in racially isolated communities and that such schools won’t be “at a competitive disadvantage for funding.”

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, which is critical of charter schools, was the most outspoken in support of changes to the program.

“Unscrupulous individuals who used the program for their enrichment will find it more difficult to do so,” she wrote Monday in , highlighting requirements that charters disclose any contracts with for-profit entities and hold public hearings on proposed schools or expansions.

But in a win for the charter sector, officials won’t force charters to collaborate with district schools in order to receive funding — a requirement included in the original draft — but they still want to encourage partnerships. And they clarified that applicants can demonstrate demand for their programs in multiple ways, including waitlists. 

“The fact that they have taken some of our comments seriously indicates the power of advocacy,” said Nina Rees, CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. But she added that if the added documentation required and the small window to apply “dampens interest” in seeking the funds, that would be “victory for our opponents.”

Yomika Bennett, executive director of the New York Charter Schools Association, was among those who rallied in Washington in May. 

“As far as I’m concerned, we’re not fully heard until the broken education system is fixed,” she said. “School systems in cities across [New York state] and across the country are allowed to fail to educate students year after year, generation after generation. Officials, union bosses and critics attack charters, school choice and fight to keep students trapped in failing district schools.”

The survey was conducted electronically in May by The Harris Poll on behalf of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. It was a follow-up to the Alliance’s own 2021 , which noted charter schools’ growth during the pandemic. While traditional public schools lost more than during the pandemic, charters gained nearly 240,000 children during the 2020-21 school year: Their enrollment grew 7%, the largest increase in half a decade.

The Alliance commissioned Harris to do subsequent polling, it said, to gain deeper insights into the parental “behaviors, experiences, preferences and attitudes” that were fueling this trend. Debbie Veney, senior vice president of communications and marketing, told ����Ӱ�� last week that one result, in particular, surprised her.

“I was blown away by the number of people who said they were willing to vote outside their political party for someone having the same position on education they do,” Veney said.

The polling doesn’t shed light on what positions parents would like candidates to hold. 

But the pandemic has caused substantial shifts in how parents view education, making them more assertive about their own decision-making power in their children’s schooling. This has led to a rise in conservative parent groups and an increased interest in choice and alternative school models.

“While we can’t speak to the parent’s agenda or motivations, our research findings indicate that when it comes to children’s education, safety and quality of instructions are at the top of parents’ list, with 96% and 93% respectively, rating them as absolutely essential or very important,” said Anna Ginovker, vice president of research at Harris.

More than 4 in 5 respondents to the Harris poll said education has become a more important political issue to them than it was in the past: 2 in 5 strongly agreed with the assertion.

Among parents who vote in federal, state and local elections, education was second only to taxes when casting their ballot in state and local races, the survey showed. It ranked fourth, behind the economy, taxation, and health care, in federal elections. For the much smaller group of parents who only vote in state and local elections, education was also second, just behind the economy and ahead of health care.

The results reflected parents’ affinity for charter schools: Nearly 3 in 4 said they would consider sending their child to a charter if one were available in their area. The same amount would like more charter offerings nearby and support expanding the number of seats available in existing charter schools.

Results showed Black parents were particularly eager for an alternative to traditional public schools: 71% strongly agreed that “one size does not fit all when it comes to educating children.” 

Harris found 70% of Black parents and 63% of Hispanic parents strongly agreed that families should have a choice in where their children attend school. 

More specifically, 53% of Black parents and 40% of Hispanic parents strongly agreed they should have educational options outside their assigned or zoned district school.

The U.S. Department of Education is working on a new governing the $440 million federal Charter Schools Program that would give preference to charters that local school districts view as potential partners, while discouraging new applications in communities with voluntary integration efforts.

Charter supporters say it would make it more difficult to get charters approved in districts experiencing enrollment declines and the Alliance has said it would particularly harm single-site operators, often school leaders of color who are more dependent on federal funding. Nearly 65% of charter schools are single-site, it said. 

There were in the United States in the 2019-20 school year, up from 4,952 a decade earlier.

Public charter school enrollment jumped from 1.6 million in fall 2009 to 3.3 million in fall 2018, according to the. At the same time, the organization reported, the number of students attending traditional public schools decreased by 400,000.

In , 10 of the 16 judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled that Charter Day School in Leland, North Carolina — just like any other public school — was acting on behalf of the state when it adopted a dress code requiring girls to wear skirts, and, therefore, violated their constitutional rights. 

The school’s board in Peltier v. Charter Day School Inc., maintained that because it’s a nonprofit organization, it should have flexibility over its educational approach, which includes strict expectations on student behavior and appearance.

“Were we to adopt [Charter Day School’s] position, North Carolina could outsource its educational obligation to charter school operators, and later ignore blatant, unconstitutional discrimination committed by those schools,” wrote Judge Barbara Milano Keenan, an Obama appointee. “We need look no further than the shameful history of state-sponsored racial discrimination in this country to reject an application of the Equal Protection Clause that would allow North Carolina to abdicate its duty to treat public schoolchildren equally.”

The case is the first time a federal appeals court has considered whether charter school students deserve the same constitutional rights as their peers in traditional schools. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the school on behalf of three families who argued the skirt rule was discriminatory. But the school’s argument threw the status of charters into question. Charter advocates and authorizers argued that their existence as public schools was never a matter of debate, while some school choice supporters suggested they operate more like private schools and could even be run by religious organizations.

Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, said the ruling should come as no surprise because states created charters to be part of the public education system. 

“The court held that the Constitution applies to schools that operate under the state’s name and with the public’s money,” he said. “Yet, this obvious point has escaped several other courts. Hopefully, this case will go a long way in setting an example for others.”

In a joint statement, Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools — which filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs — and Rhonda Dillingham, executive director of the North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools, said the ruling gives charter schools clarity over their status and obligations to protect students’ civil rights.

“The North Carolina charter statute not only compels this outcome but the statute mirrors the substantive provisions in charter statutes around the country,” they said, adding that the “decision crosses state lines — inside and beyond the 4th Circuit.” 

Judge Keenan wrote that charter schools are not merely alternative models like private schools or homeschooling, and putting them in the same category “ignores both the ‘free, universal’ nature of this education and the statutory framework chosen by North Carolina in establishing this type of public school.”

But in the minority’s dissent, Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., a Trump appointee, said the majority “breaks new ground” and ignores Supreme Court precedent. 

Quattlebaum’s earlier opinion — which the new ruling overturns — leaned on a 1982 case, , in which the Supreme Court ruled that a private school receiving state funds for educating “maladjusted” high school students was not acting under the “color of state law” when it fired a counselor and five teachers. 

The implications of Tuesday’s opinion go far beyond whether a charter school can require girls to wear skirts, he wrote in his dissent Tuesday.

“The majority significantly broadens the scope of what it means for the actions of a private party to be attributed to the state,” he wrote.

Aaron Streett, an attorney representing the nonprofit organization that founded the school and its board members, said the decision restricts parents’ ability to choose the kind of education they want for their children.

“[Charter Day School] will continue to provide an excellent education to its students,” he said, “even as it evaluates the next steps in challenging this mistaken and harmful ruling.”

The proposed rule would allow “federal reviewers to ignore state and local decisions to authorize new public charter schools,” Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Diane Feinstein of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey wrote in a to U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. 

Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Richard Burr of North Carolina also signed the letter. The proposed requirements, they wrote, “would make it difficult, if not impossible, for new public charter schools start-ups, and for high-performing public charter schools seeking to replicate or expand, to access [Charter Schools Program] funding.”

The $440 million competitive grant program, now almost 30 years old, supports schools’ start-up costs, from facility needs to staffing. Department officials say the revisions, which would require potential grantees to demonstrate “sufficient demand,” would encourage more racially balanced schools that don’t compete with traditional districts losing enrollment. Provisions would also require charters to be transparent about any contracts they have with for-profit organizations, which would increase accountability. But charter advocates argue the plan would make it harder for applicants to win approval, even if there’s demand from families. 

After backlash from the field and six in the Senate, the department last month extended the comment period on the rule for five days. Over 26,000 , both for and against the plan, have been submitted. 

Ranking Republicans on the House and Senate education committees have also threatened to repeal the rule if the administration doesn’t change it. They’ve asked the department to confirm by May 12 that it will submit the final rule to Congress for review.

In the recent letter, the senators said the proposal would “add significant burdens and time to an already complex application process, with little time for technical assistance, particularly for the upcoming 2022 grant cycle.”

Under the current schedule, the department is due to award grants to states by Sept. 30, which means the department has less than four months to finalize its rule, post the grant application and review submissions. New and expanding charter schools depend on the grant program because they don’t receive funding until after they begin serving students.

The senators want the department to allow charter operators to apply for the program under existing rules released in 2020.

“The time frame is definitely very tight, which is why it’s better to stick to the old rule this year,” said Nina Rees, CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. The Alliance is opposed to the department’s major revisions to the rule and argues it would hurt charters at a time when the sector has seen record growth. 

The department didn’t directly respond to the bipartisan letter, but said in a statement that the proposed rule is intended to “improve the quality and accountability of charter schools.”

Bennet, Feinstein and Booker advocate for funding for the Charter Schools Program every year, Rees said, but added it’s significant that they’re “expressing their views publicly.”

“We hope the department takes them seriously,” she said. “The three are not just any Democrats. They come from … states with a rich history of chartering.”

But first his staff had to respond to the “pandemic’s aftershocks,” including student learning gaps and parents’ loss of work. Now with 106 students — 99% of them Black and Latino — the school has leaned on a $1 million grant from the federal Charter Schools Program for new technology, curriculum materials and furniture.

Schools like Long’s could have a much harder time getting off the ground if the Biden administration’s plans to revamp the $440 million grant program become final. The U.S. Department of Education’s would give preference to charters that districts view as potential partners and discourage new applications in communities with voluntary integration efforts. And if districts are losing enrollment — as they are in D.C. — new charter schools might not be well-received. 

“As a Black male who leads a single-site school in Washington D.C., this is extremely concerning,” Long said. 

The rule could significantly alter a program that has given a boost to almost 4,100 existing charter schools — roughly 53%, according to the department. like KIPP and Success Academy Charter Schools are among the grantees.

Nina Rees, CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said the funds help launch new charters, which typically don’t receive state and local funding until they begin admitting students. The program is especially important for “aspiring school leaders of color” who might not have financial backing from a foundation, she said. 

With nearly 65% of charters being single-site schools, Rees added, “these proposed regulations are a direct attack on new schools like this.”

Congress has taken note of the backlash. North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx, ranking member of the House education committee, said in a statement that the “administration is manufacturing authority it doesn’t have to add unworkable requirements to these charter school grants.” On Monday, the department to comment on the rule from Wednesday to next Monday after six senators for more time. In a statement to ����Ӱ��, the department said the “administration recognizes that there is a place for high-quality public charter schools and supports continuing important investments.”

The debate comes amid a period of change and growth for the charter sector. Last school year, charters saw their largest jump in enrollment in six years — a 7% increase. Initial reports from states such as Alabama and Massachusetts show growth is continuing.

At the same time, Democrats have soured on charters in recent years after a long period in which they enjoyed bipartisan support. 

“The Biden administration breaks that tradition,” said James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center. “It is clear that they looked around and decided that hewing closely to the wishes of their political patrons in the teachers unions was the way to go. Since they cannot kill us directly, they must resort to attacks on start-up funding.”

Advocates say the department didn’t consult with them before writing the regulation. North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr’s letter noted that the department turned down his staff’s request to meet. 

“It doesn’t feel like charter school leaders are a valued part of the process,” said Sonia Park, executive director of the Diverse Charter Schools Coalition, which promotes efforts to create charters that are more racially balanced. As written, the regulations would “make it very challenging for even a diverse charter to get approval if enrollment is declining in a district,” she said.

She pointed to Prospect Schools in Brooklyn, New York, which opened in September 2020, and Atlas Public Schools in St. Louis, which opened last fall. Both designed their schools to reflect the make-up of their communities, but because enrollment is declining in their , the schools “would have had extreme difficulty in being approved” today, she said.

The department stressed that U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona spoke last year at the National Charter Schools Conference and has gathered input from charter leaders throughout the pandemic. 

One organization the department heard from was The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank that in 2019 for ways the program could promote integration. Halley Potter, a senior fellow at Century and a co-author of the report, said she had a call with the education department before the draft of the rule was issued March 14.

Her report cited showing that charters are more likely than district schools to have student bodies that are more than half Black or Hispanic. In some pockets of the country, however, charter schools are more likely to draw higher-income, white families away from district schools, contributing to racial segregation. Studies have borne this out in and .

Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, said in communities with long-standing integration efforts, charters often “operate as an exit strategy for white families who are resistant  — consciously or subconsciously — to more diverse environments.”

Potter called the department’s proposal an effort to make sure charter schools “fit in with the context of [their] local community.” 

“I really hope that we could see a broad base of charter supporters getting on board with this,” she said.

‘A lifeline’

The , begun in 1994 under the Clinton administration, is a competitive grant that provides funding for start-up expenses. Smaller networks have also used funds to add more schools. When Uplift Education, based in Texas, expanded from Dallas to Fort Worth, where it would serve another 2,000 to 3,000 students, the federal grant program supported planning, expanding staff and family engagement efforts, said Rich Harrison, formerly the network’s chief academic officer. 

Under the proposed rules, states applying for the funds would have to prove that there is “sufficient demand” for charters, including support from the local community and evidence that district schools have more students than they can serve. 

In districts with declining enrollment — a trend across most urban districts nationwide — new charters would face a tougher time getting approved, said Harrison, now CEO of Lighthouse Community Charter Schools in Oakland. 

“The anti-charter rhetoric in Oakland is at an all time high,” Harrison said, after the district voted in February to close seven schools. 

Community impact

Charter opponents argue that the grant program has been a vehicle for and financially benefiting for-profit entities. In a commentary for , Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, called the new requirements “sensible rules of the road” and downplayed the rule’s impact. 

In a comment to the department, she pointed, for example, to Torchlight Academy, a North Carolina school and grant recipient operated by for-profit Torchlight Academy Schools. The state voted in March to revoke the school’s charter, citing alleged that benefited the family operating the school. The charter is appealing the state’s decision, saying it has cut ties with the family.

The proposal would require schools receiving the grant funds to pledge that they won’t contract with a for-profit organization to assume most or all of the operation of the school. Grantees would also have to make those agreements public.

Karega Rausch, president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, said he appreciates the focus on transparency. But he and other charter advocates have problems with a requirement that states applying for the funds conduct a “community impact analysis.” Such a process would have to take “into account the student demographics of the schools from which students are, or would be, drawn to attend the charter school.” 

Rausch said local authorizers, not state officials, should be responsible for determining whether there is adequate demand for a charter school. He added that the department is sending a mixed message.

“You can’t simultaneously say that it’s a good thing to listen to communities and families and then federally impose specific kinds of schools on communities,” he said.

The education department would give preference to charter applications in which current and former educators are deeply involved in leadership and development of the schools. Another priority for the department is that districts and charter operators work together on issues such as joint teacher training or transportation. At least one district school would have to provide a letter in support of working with the charter. 

Rausch said that provision gives the districts leverage, adding that charter demand has increased because they “meet the needs of families” who feel their children aren’t being well-served in traditional schools.

“We are all in favor of collaborative efforts, but it’s got to go both ways,” he said. “We don’t want us versus them. That is old politics.”

Offered the job by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, Carvalho in private, then presided over a televised school board meeting that featured three hours of supporters all but begging him to stay. In the end, Carvalho remained.

greeted the move in Miami, but it didn’t go over so well in New York, home to the nation’s largest school district: Eric Phillips, de Blasio’s press secretary, , “Who would ever hire this guy again?”

Four years later, Phillips has his answer: Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest school system.

The drama of the hire was underscored by Pedro Noguera, dean of the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, who likened the move to “LeBron coming to the Lakers.” But Los Angeles offers only the most recent example of an oversize personality with huge ambitions taking over a district’s top job. Right now, all three of the nation’s largest school systems are run by energetic reformers, a rarity even in big-city schools circles.

All of them greet Spring 2022 full of promise — and problems. Over the next few years, they’ll enjoy unprecedented funding as taxpayers throw billions of dollars at schools to scrub away deficits caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

But all three districts are rapidly losing students. And unions, emboldened by 2021 victories around remote instruction and, in recent years, high-profile strikes, could be formidable obstacles to their priorities. In Chicago, new schools CEO has already faced down a citywide teacher walkout.

In addition to Carvalho and Martinez, who are both immigrants, New York City Mayor Eric Adams in December named , the founder of a small network of public boys’ schools, as the new school chancellor. Banks’s schools have stood out for, among other reasons, employing many male teachers of color.

All three “definitely seem reform minded, which I think is super exciting and a real breath of fresh air,” said , superintendent of the Catholic independent Partnership Schools network. 

“I think it really speaks to the moment we’re at as we’re coming out of COVID,” she said. The pandemic “provided an uncomfortable reminder” of the need for leaders who will put children’s needs first. 

Billions in new funding … until 2024

Martinez, Chicago’s new schools CEO, is of Chiefs for Change, a group that advocates for increased school choice, effective teacher preparation, and standards-aligned curricula. But it also rails against “onerous bureaucracy” in schools. That credo will certainly be challenged by the sheer scale of federal intervention: some in COVID-related relief since 2020.

In New York, state lawmakers in 2021 increased funding to New York City by nearly half a billion dollars. By next year, a lawsuit settled last year to equalize urban school funding could bring that to $1 billion, said president of Bank Street College and New York City’s former senior deputy chancellor. “So there is a significant infusion of new dollars into the school system that can be used to dig into systemic issues. And that’s very rare.”

As in districts large and small elsewhere, the three leaders are “all drinking from a firehose” of funding, said of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. But that also places extra responsibility on them: “No one can blame lack of funding as their excuse for not getting things done,” she said.

But unless Congress acts, all that extra funding will run out in 2024. None of the three new leaders agreed to be interviewed for this piece.

, who leads the AASA, the nation’s school superintendent’s association, said many leaders are using the cash to upgrade facilities. But spending it on generous raises or new instructional positions could actually put them at odds with unions, since those jobs won’t be sustainable.

“The financial cliff is only two years away,” he said.

A ‘friend of charters back at the helm’

A product of New York City’s public schools, Banks cut his teeth founding and the network of five unionized Eagle Academy public schools in New York City and Newark.

While the schools aren’t charters, Banks has said he supports charter schools. He told in December that families “are desperate for quality seats, quality schools … And if the traditional public schools were offering that, you wouldn’t see such a mass rush to the charter schools.”

Banks created the Eagle Academy schools to serve academically struggling boys of color in grades six through 12 who often face harsh discipline. As chancellor, he said, his first priorities are to expand early childhood education, improve career pathways for older students, and to combat students’ trauma.

, president of the United Federation of Teachers, the city’s union, has known Banks for years. “I’ve been at his schools and I found them to be quite well-run,” he said. All the same, running the largest school district in the nation will force him to tame the city schools’ “mammoth bureaucracy.” 

The last two mayors have restructured the school system six times, Mulgrew said. “And every time, all they did was add another layer.”

In his , Banks on March 2 acknowledged that many families have “decided to vote with their feet, and to say, ‘We’re going to find other alternatives and other choices for our children.’” 

He promised an overhaul of the bureaucracy, including requiring district superintendents to reapply for their jobs. And he took direct aim at the way many schools teach reading, criticizing a method developed by a Columbia University Teachers College professor that “has not worked” with many children. He promised to shift to a method that emphasizes explicit phonics instruction, among other changes.

Banks has also said he’d like to transform city schools from the bottom up by handing to “principals who know what they’re doing,” according to the speech. He also wants to tweak how standardized tests are used, allowing students to show they’ve mastered content in other ways.

His ascendance stands in contrast to previous leaders who have looked suspiciously on the charter sector. New York actually caps the number of charter schools statewide at 460, with just 290 allowed for nearly 1 million students in New York City. While it’d take a state-level change to allow more, choice advocates said Banks can eloquently make the case.

“It feels to me like this is the moment where we can really see that there is a friend of charters back at the helm of New York City schools, which I think is really great to see, and I know is probably sending some shockwaves,” said Porter-Magee.

So far, at least, Banks hasn’t forcefully pushed to lift the cap, in December, “We want to scale excellence. So if that means opening a few more charter schools, that’s what we’re going to do … if we can get the state to approve it.” But he said he’s also encouraging the philanthropic community “to lean in on the traditional public school system, because at the end of the day, most of our children will continue to go to our traditional public schools.”

Enrollment downturns

Carvalho, who led Miami-Dade schools for 14 years, has been able to compete with charters by creating centralized data systems that allowed him to keep track of students’ academic progress better than most big-city leaders during the pandemic, Rees said. 

A Portuguese immigrant, Carvalho grew up in Miami and worked restaurant and construction jobs early on. He came up through the ranks in Miami-Dade, starting out as a high school science teacher and becoming a new breed of area leader: one who sticks around. Before he took the top job in 2008, Miami-Dade “was a revolving door for superintendents coming and going,” Domenech said.

Sticking around paid off. In 2012, the district won the coveted $1 million Broad Prize for Urban Education, which recognizes school districts that have shown academic improvement while narrowing the achievement gap. More recent findings from the district’s Office of Academics and Transformation paint a : While Black students’ graduation rates rose from 62.4 percent in 2011 to 85.6 percent in 2020, just 40 percent of Black students in 2019 were proficient in reading; 44 percent were proficient in math. 

With parents clamoring to remediate lost instructional time during the pandemic, Domenech said Carvalho brought in “a very creative” program that contracted with camps to provide summer school.

Carvalho’s long tenure — the average big-city leader sticks around — is “a testament to his savvy in terms of the politics, in dealing with the board, in dealing with the community, in dealing with employee groups,” Domenech said.

He’ll need that savvy in Los Angeles, which also has recently featured a revolving door of superintendents, a strong union and an outspoken, ever-shifting school board — it currently has three seats open in the next election. In Los Angeles, Carvalho will work at the pleasure of the school board. Meanwhile, Banks and Martinez will work for the mayors of their respective cities.

During his second week at LAUSD, Carvalho unveiled a that includes expanded preschool, year-round learning and a “Parent Academy” offering coursework to help parents understand their children’s education. He’d also lengthen the school year and offer teachers more professional development. He acknowledged that he’d have to negotiate with the city’s teachers union about those last two ideas.

Carvalho last month told ����Ӱ�� the district must expand school choice if it wants to keep from “bleeding out students” from a system that, while much bigger than Miami, has fewer than one-third as many school choice options.

Los Angeles students, he said, basically have two choices at the moment: magnet schools and charter schools. “Whoever decided to restrict choice on the basis of those parameters?” he asked. “Where are the programs in L.A. where we see long waiting lists of parents? Why aren’t we expanding more of those programs to where the demand is?”

He has the district consider an “explosion of offerings” for students, including dual-enrollment programs, International Baccalaureate programs, fine and performing arts magnet schools, and single-gender schools, among others. “I’m less concerned about the dynamic of dialogue that usually separates people into two camps: charter versus non-charter. I’m more interested in programmatic offerings that benefit kids — period.”

Carvalho suggested that the district analyze which programs motivate students to travel long distances from their neighborhoods and offer more of these. “I can fill an entire wall with a repertoire of options for parents. Why aren’t we offering all of that?”

Throughout the pandemic, all three cities have struggled to retain and, in some cases, even find their students. All have seen in .

of the California Charter Schools Association said a crashing birth rate across California is a cause for concern. And net migration has actually dipped “into the negatives” as home due to anti-immigration policies and economic uncertainty.

“This is not about ‘The affluent went to Tahoe during the pandemic to hunker down,’” she said. “This is real and it’s permanent and it’s creating challenges across the state.”

An ‘innovative and data-informed’ school integration experiment

Born in Mexico, Martinez emigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was 5. He is in a family of 12 children with deep ties to Chicago’s public school system — three of his sisters and some 28 nieces and nephews attend local public schools. 

Martinez was working in finance for the Archdiocese of Chicago in 2003 when then-Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Arne Duncan hired him as chief financial officer. He remained there until 2009 — Duncan moved on to serve as U.S. Education Secretary under President Obama. Martinez made a name for himself leading the San Antonio Independent School District through a redesign, beginning in 2015, that ����Ӱ�� dubbed “one of America’s most innovative and data-informed school integration experiments.”

Using family income data, he mapped poverty levels for each city block. Then he integrated schools not by race but by income and, among other factors, by parents’ education levels. Three years later, San Antonio’s 90 schools and 47,000 students were among the fastest-improving in Texas.

In Chicago, he faces something entirely different: a 330,000-student system that’s as families leave the city. Recent enrollment data show that while 43,500 new students enrolled for the first time this year, 54,000 left between the last school year and this one.

On the job in Chicago for seven months, Martinez has already his first major crisis: the city’s teachers in early January voted to not show up for work until COVID-19 safety demands were met. 

Martinez proposed a host of measures, including building-level testing to determine when to close schools. But the union, with memories of an that ended with millions in extra spending, insisted on more strict measures, including negative PCR tests for all staff, students, and volunteers in order to keep schools open. 

The strike lasted just under a week after the district agreed to increase testing options, allow remote learning on a case-by-case basis, and secure more KN95 masks. Despite the agreement, union Vice President Stacy Davis Gates Mayor Lori Lightfoot as “unfit to lead our city. She’s on a one-woman kamikaze mission to destroy our public schools.”

‘This is the moment that unions should be at their strongest’

, a school consultant and occasional columnist for ����Ӱ��, said the political climate in all three cities reflects a desire by voters more broadly and parents specifically, to pull back from “super-progressive” policies, such as the Defund the Police movement, to more centrist strategies that simply ensure a solid education for all. Parents “just want a school system they can count on, that’s reliable, that is just serving their kids.”

, president of the education advocacy group 50CAN, said Adams, the New York mayor, campaigned on not just a return to moderation but normalcy: “The schools are open, the subways are safe. The restaurants work. People are back in their offices. That’s almost nostalgia now, and people crave that. And I think these candidates got that. And their education choices reflect that too.”

At the same time, unions are on the ascent. With their to in-person instruction amid COVID-19 spikes and a handful of recent in recent years, they’ve seen their and influence grow after years of declining membership. 

“This is the moment that unions should be at their strongest,” said , a resident senior fellow at the R Street Institute, a libertarian Washington, D.C., think tank. “This is a health crisis, and unions are designed to make sure that they’re protecting the health and safety of their members.”

But over the past few years, he said, unions in many places have “overplayed their hands” by demanding that instruction stay remote. The arrival of these new leaders may signal something different altogether: The new leaders are by no means union supporters, even if voters in each of their solidly blue cities are.

Rees, of the charter schools group, noted that Banks hired Dan Weisberg as first deputy chancellor. Since 2015, Weisberg has served as , a national nonprofit (formerly called The New Teacher Project) that has trained thousands of teachers outside of traditional teachers colleges. Since its founding in 1997, it has had a complicated relationship with unions. 

In 2018, after the U.S. Supreme Court dealt unions a blow by making a portion of members’ dues optional, Weisberg wrote that he disagreed with the decision, calling it “a matter of basic fairness that teachers who reap the benefits of collective bargaining should also share in the costs.”

But Weisberg also called the decision “a blessing in disguise” for unions, which he said “are now forced to finally confront an existential threat that’s been brewing for years: They’re losing touch with more and more of their members.”

Rees said Weisberg’s hiring “gives us confidence that there’s a new sheriff in town and that things are going to be a little bit different, or at least that the reform community and the charter school community will have a seat at the table.”

Students had to address adults with “sir” or “ma’am,” couldn’t have “radical” hairstyles and girls were required to wear jumpers, skirts or skorts — skirts with shorts attached underneath. The requirements were meant to promote respect and chivalry, but according to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of three families at the school, the skirt rule invited teasing from boys and reprimands from teachers when the girls’ underwear or shorts would show.

The girls and their parents argue the dress code is discriminatory and that students at charters should have the same constitutional rights as their peers attending traditional schools. The issue before the full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hear oral arguments Dec. 10, is whether charters can operate with a degree of flexibility more akin to private schools — freedom that some say could put the rights of charter school students at risk. Some observers argue a decision in favor of the school could also pave the way for religious organizations to run charters.

The plaintiffs in asked for the “en banc” hearing after a three-judge panel ruled 2 to 1 in August that the school was not a “state actor” when it created its uniform policy.  Since 2019, when a U.S. District Court the school has allowed girls to wear pants or shorts, pending the outcome of the appeal. The rules on student hairstyles and addressing adults remain unchanged.

This is the first time an appellate court has considered whether a student can sue a charter school under the federal equal protection clause. Past cases that hinge on the state actor issue have focused on employee-related disputes. Since Minnesota passed the first charter school law in 1991, lower courts have widely held that charters are public schools and students have the same civil rights protections as their peers in traditional schools. Charter school advocates say state laws already make this clear.

“Every state charter statute recognizes charter schools as part of the state’s public education ecosystem,” said Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, which submitted to the court. If the current ruling stands, she added, “it would be in conflict with the clear intent of state statutes and set a legal precedent that could call into question the public status of charter schools in other states.”

Last month, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division , noting the fact Charter Day School sees its dress code as an essential part of its educational model demonstrates the tight connection between the school and the state.

Defendants in the case — the nonprofit organization that founded the school and its board members — say the plaintiffs’ argument undermines the reason charter schools were created.

“The purpose of charter schools was to differentiate them from traditional public schools and to remove them in important respects from state oversight,” said Aaron Streett, an attorney representing the defendants. They’re looking to a past , in which the court ruled a charter school was not a state actor, to support their argument.

The claim that students’ rights were violated, he said, is a “red herring” because charter schools agree to uphold students’ constitutional rights when they receive a charter.

The students complained of being cold in the winter and having to sit uncomfortably, “like a lady,” with their legs to the side on the floor, according to court documents. They stopped doing flips and cartwheels at recess to keep from exposing the shorts under their skirts. 

Such claims, however, are evidence that girls were treated differently than boys, not unfairly burdened by the uniform policy, according to the defendants.

Not forced to attend 

If the ruling by the initial 4th Circuit panel — which included two Trump appointees — stands, it could strengthen the position that faith-based organizations should be able to open charter schools.

“If they are private schools, then I would argue that they can be religious,” said Nicole Stelle Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame.

The outcome of another federal lawsuit, scheduled for oral arguments before the Supreme Court Wednesday, could also back up that argument. In , plaintiffs argue that religious schools should be able to participate in school choice programs even if they teach religion.  

Preston Green, an education professor at the University of Connecticut, said a Supreme Court opinion in favor of the plaintiffs in Carson would strengthen the case for religious charters.

Defense attorney Streett, however, said that debates over whether an entity is a state actor are case-specific and don’t suggest that the organization in question is “wholly in the public sphere or wholly in the private sphere.” He rejected the possibility of religious charter schools because nonprofits would then be violating the terms of their charter. 

In his majority 4th circuit opinion in Peltier, Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. noted that students weren’t forced to attend Charter Day School — and still had the option of attending a traditional public school.

Noting charter schools’ “wide latitude to experiment with pedagogical methods,” Quattlebaum wrote that they are not “state actors” and therefore not governed by the First Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. The school’s skirt requirement, therefore, was not “fairly  attributable” to the state, he wrote. Judge Allison Jones Rushing agreed. 

Quattlebaum’s opinion leaned heavily on , a 1982 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a private school that received state funds for educating “maladjusted” high school students was not acting under the “color of state law” when it fired a counselor and five teachers. 

States could ‘remove all doubt’

That’s where Quattlebaum’s argument “jumps off the rails,” Judge Barbara Milano Keenan, an Obama appointee, wrote in her dissent. Rendell-Baker, she said, focuses on a private school, while Charter Day School is a “public school created under North Carolina law and funded almost entirely by governmental sources.”

She added that the school’s skirt rule, “with its many attendant harms to girls, denies these girls at this public school their constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law.” 

Green, at the University of Connecticut, said there’s more at stake than the rights of students attending charter schools, which have continued to experience growth through the pandemic. If charters are not state actors, it would be easier for them to exclude some students, he said. 

Even though the charter alliance argues the laws are already clear, Green added that states could “remove all doubt” by adding language that charter schools can’t discriminate against students based on their sex, gender, race, disability or religious preference. They could take steps to reinforce charters’ status as public schools, perhaps by having elected boards, or by strengthening oversight, he added. 

But Streett said if charters don’t fulfill their obligations, accountability is already built into state laws. “Revoking the charter,” he said, “is one way the state can deal with this.”