The Power Worshippers

by Katherine Stewart

  The sixth-largest network, Responsive Education Solutions, or ResponsiveEd, has collaborated with the Barney Charter School Initiative in the formation of the Founders Classical Academy, another charter network spinoff. According to the journalist Zack Kopplin, writing for Slate in 2014, biology workbooks used by Responsive Education Solutions “overtly and underhandedly discredit evidence-based science and allow creationism into public school classrooms.” Other classroom materials seemed just as concerning. According to Kopplin, ResponsiveEd textbooks claimed that feminism “created an entirely new class of females who lacked male financial support and who had to turn to the state as a surrogate husband.” In a section on the causes of World War I, Kopplin writes, “the study materials suggest that ‘anti-Christian bias’ coming out of the Enlightenment helped create the foundations for the war.” Responding to the allegations, ResponsiveEd co-founder and CEO Chuck Cook issued a statement asserting, “There is much research to be done in this area of origins. Until more concrete answers are found, questions on how life originated will continue.”

  On October 16, 2017, a writer for the HuffPost who covered the controversy received a letter from ResponsiveEd pushing back on the charges. “While there were ambiguous references that did not violate state or federal law, ResponsiveEd nevertheless updated its curriculum to avoid any misinterpretation or confusion that ResponsiveEd was teaching creationism or otherwise endorsing or disapproving of religion,” the notice read. “Creationism is simply not part of ResponsiveEd’s science curriculum.”59

  ResponsiveEd grew out of a charter network, Eagle Educational Reform Systems, Inc. (initially called Eagle Project), founded by fundamentalist preacher Donald R. Howard in 1998. Howard, along with his wife Esther, also designed a “Biblically-based” Christian curriculum, Accelerated Christian Education, which has been used in religious schools around the world. In 1979, Howard published a book, Rebirth of Our Nation, that bore a ringing endorsement from R. J. Rushdoony. “A war is on, and, if you are unaware of it, you will be on the casualty list of God and man,” Rushdoony wrote. “The war is humanism’s war on Christianity. In his book, Rebirth of Our Nation, Dr. Donald R. Howard gives us an account of that war, and some battle strategy. Read it, and join the battle.”60

  Of course, leaders of the new charter school offshoots of Howard’s efforts likely understood that their ability to obtain taxpayer funding for their public charter schools rested on the appearance of respect for the separation of church and state. In 1998, Howard told the Wall Street Journal, “Take the Ten Commandments—you can work those as a success principle by rewording them. We will call it truth, we will call it principles, we will call it values. We will not call it religion.”61

  Imagine Schools, seventh on the list, was cofounded by Dennis and Eileen Bakke, who spend millions of dollars every year on a wide variety of domestic and international missionary projects through their faith-based nonprofit Mustard Seed Foundation. The Imagine Schools charter network has drawn scrutiny for lease arrangements that absorb large amounts of taxpayer funding. One Imagine Schools charter in Land O’ Lakes, Florida, signed a lease from its landlord agreeing to a base rent of $757,989 per year; the landlord, Schoolhouse Finance, is a company that is also owned by Imagine Schools.62

  The ninth-largest network in the country, Harmony Public Schools, is affiliated with the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, leader of the transnational Islamic social and religious movement called the Gülen movement. Harmony schools have been accused of giving preference to Turkish teachers and vendors who are attached to the Gülen movement as well as abusing the visa program. The FBI has opened an investigation into whether Gülen followers are diverting money from their charters into the movement itself; several former teachers alleged they were forced to hand over part of their taxpayer-funded salaries for that purpose.63

  According to the Center for Public Integrity, between 2006 and 2015 the Gülen religious movement funded more than one hundred and fifty international junkets for American lawmakers—some of whom later introduced resolutions supporting the nearly two hundred American charter schools linked to the movement. In addition to Harmony, Gülen-affiliated groups operate other charter networks in the United States, giving Gülen-affiliated schools robust representation within the charter sector.

  Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused Fethullah Gülen of leading a resistance front and has arrested and jailed tens of thousands of his alleged supporters. Setting aside the matter of Erdoğan’s dictatorial leadership and other abuses of power, the question remains: Why is a somewhat secretive imam, the possible leader of a resistance campaign in his home country, running a sizable sector of the U.S. taxpayer-funded charter school movement within the U.S.?

  In sum, about eight of the twenty largest charter operators in the country are under the control of individuals or groups of people for whom education “reform” is part of a clear partisan, religious, or ideological agenda.

  Just as in Michigan, the waves of deregulation appear to have ushered in an epidemic of corruption in the charter sector. Every week, it seems, another item in what the Washington Post called the “charter scandal parade” makes the headlines. In its 2018 investigation into the Arizona charter sector, the Arizona Republic, part of the USA Today network, alleged that many charter schools in the state “have turned into cash cows through multi-billion-dollar business deals between charter schools and their founders.”64 A multipart investigation into Florida charter schools by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that “unchecked charter-school operators are exploiting South Florida’s public school system, collecting taxpayer dollars for schools that quickly shut down.” Once schools close, “districts struggle to retrieve public money not spent on students.”65

  Nor have charter schools delivered on their boosters’ oft-repeated promises of “racial equity.” A 2017 investigation produced by the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit independent news agency focused on inequality and innovation in education, asserted that the charter school movement is prolonging racial segregation, citing an Associated Press analysis of nearly 7,000 charter schools. More than 1,000 of those schools, according to the report, had a minority enrollment of over 99 percent. Meanwhile a 2018 report coproduced by the Hechinger Report, NBC News, and the Investigative Fund concluded that loose laws allow elite charters to create policies that favor white students. A summary of the report cites the example of Lake Oconee Academy in Greensboro, Georgia, which is largely white. Public schools in the surrounding area are 12 percent white and 68 percent Black.66

  Still, the DeVos-supported apparatus continues to defend its record, massaging or cherry-picking evidence if need be. In 2018, Michigan Capitol Confidential, a nonprofit news service published by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy,67 proclaimed, “The Numbers Are In: Detroit Charters Outperform Detroit District Schools.” The article stated that some charter schools outperform some district schools in the English and math portions of Michigan’s standardized test, the M-STEP. Buried in the piece is the fact that district schools are shown to outperform charters on important national measures, including SAT scores—even as they accept all students, including those with learning disabilities.

  As in Michigan, charterization has produced a flurry of church-state mergers. Andrew Seidel, a constitutional attorney and the director of strategic response for the Freedom from Religion Foundation, says the organization has seen an uptick in complaints—about forty in the past five years—involving charter schools. They have included accounts of school officials leading students in prayer or forming unconstitutional partnerships with churches.

  Frequently, cases stall because plaintiffs are afraid of being ostracized in their communities. Many parents are unwilling to expose their children to retaliation from teachers, administrators, and classmates. In the case of Heritage Academy in Arizona, a plaintiff accused the academy of teaching and endorsing religion in the classroom, violating the Constitution. But the federal judge barred
him from proceeding as “John Doe” and required that he use his initials and those of his children, essentially killing the case; even their initials would have given away their identities.

  “Most of the time, you don’t know what goes on in the school unless you have kids there,” says Richard Katskee, legal director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which represented the plaintiffs. “If you’ve chosen to send your kids there, you usually don’t complain.”

  Americans United for Separation of Church and State also reports an uptick in cases brought to its doors. “Prior to 2007, we saw basically no complaints about charter schools,” says Ian Smith, a staff attorney for Americans United. “After 2007, the number of complaints related to charter schools steadily increased to the point where we regularly review charter school–related submissions and write letters to charter schools about constitutional violations.”

  So far, just one complaint has led to the closure of a charter school on grounds of religion. Predictably, the religion in question was Islam. In 2009 the ACLU of Minnesota filed a federal lawsuit against the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) alleging that TiZA, the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, and TiZA’s landlords were linked by a complex set of overlapping relationships and that the school was endorsing Islam in connection with school activities. The school was shut down by the Minnesota Department of Education in 2011.68

  Attempts to insert religion directly into the curriculum, in any case, are really only the most egregious examples of advancing the religious and ideological agendas of these charter operators. Other, subtler methods are often used to convey such messages. Some charter schools, often describing themselves as “classical academies,” claim to teach “virtue,” our “national heritage,” and “the principles of the Founders.” It requires further investigation to reveal that the heritage in question is a politicized and sectarian version, often one that springs directly from the talking points of David Barton.

  Keith Becher, who was formerly employed by Pineapple Cove Academy, which is affiliated with the Pineapple Cove Classical Academy and a part of the Barney Charter School Initiative, describes what the soft establishment of religion in a charter school looks like on the ground. “They conduct orientations for parents, telling them how public education is ruining kids and we need to get back to how things used to be,” he says. “A ‘nondenominational’ chaplain comes around and says stuff like ‘America is a Judeo-Christian nation’ founded on ‘biblical principles.’ ” And, Becher adds, “everything is ‘American exceptionalism,’ Ayn Randian. If you’re screwed, it’s your fault.”

  Betsy DeVos came to the Department of Education with an abundance of contempt for the idea of public education and a near-total lack of experience in it, either as an educator or a parent. She soon lived down to expectations. In February 2017, at one of her first high-profile gatherings as education secretary, DeVos invited a number of participants to join her and President Trump at the White House. “I’m really excited to be here today with parents and educators, representing traditional public schools, charter public schools, home schools, private schools—a range of choices,” DeVos said. Of the nine invitees at the table, seven were homeschoolers, representatives from religious schools, and education reform advocates. Only two were representatives of traditional public schools, both working in special-needs education.

  The pattern continued for the next two years. In August 2017, DeVos attended and led a roundtable of “education leaders” in Tallahassee, Florida. The leaders in question included six members of the Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, which convened the meeting, and several clergy from other Baptist and evangelical ministries. A dozen representatives of Florida universities, prominent school choice advocates, leaders of religious schools, five public school superintendents, elected Republican officials, and an office manager were also included. Not a single public school teacher or student was present.69

  Afterward, Leon County superintendent Rocky Hanna, who attended the meeting, expressed his disappointment with DeVos. “It’s obvious that the secretary and our federal government have very little respect for our traditional public school system,” he said. “And it’s insulting that she’s going to visit the capital of the state of Florida to visit a charter school, a private school, and a voucher school”—but no traditional public schools.70

  The Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, on the other hand, stands to benefit directly from the DeVos agenda. Their church-run school, the Bethel Christian Academy, is a voucher recipient. Approximately 73 percent of voucher schools across the country are Christian. Just 23 percent are nonreligious, with other religions accounting for an additional sliver of the pie. Like many other Christian schools receiving taxpayer subsidies, Bethel Christian Academy has utilized material from the Christian publisher Abeka, which is affiliated with Pensacola Christian College; its textbooks are also popular among Christian homeschooling families. The Abeka curriculum is rooted in themes that appear to fuse a biblical literalist understanding of Christian identity with right-wing economic ideology.

  Abeka textbooks have come under fire for promoting creationism and denigrating non-Christian faiths. According to an Abeka textbook World History and Cultures, Nelson Mandela, the South African leader who helped facilitate an end to apartheid, was a “Marxist agitator” who moved the country toward a system of “radical ‘affirmative action.’ ” From an Abeka textbook titled America: Land I Love, kids might have read that “radical environmentalists” “worship” nature and “view mankind as the enemy of nature.”71 From that same textbook, children may have learned that it was Satan himself who “hatched the ideas of evolution, socialism, Marxist-socialism (Communism), progressive education, and modern psychology.”72

  The decentralized nature of the American school system begs the question as to how much of her “ed reform” agenda DeVos will be able to enact while serving as Trump’s education secretary. Some of her critics take comfort in the thought that DeVos’s programs are small drops in the education ocean or unlikely to survive passage through the political and bureaucratic channels of America’s hyper-complex education system. But this would be to underestimate both the legitimizing effect of her ceremonial actions and the disruptive effect of the kinds of initiatives she is proposing.

  As education secretary, DeVos presently controls various programs including the Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program, or CSP. By September 2017 the program had awarded approximately $253 million in grants. The amounts of money don’t seem that large in the context of America’s education system. Furthermore, the program, which is in the new Every Student Succeeds Act, is highly competitive, requiring that grantees meet certain quality standards. But the Department of Education has the authority to add new priorities that applications have to address, giving DeVos the power to shape grant competition in specific ways.

  Trump’s first budget, released in early 2017, allocated $1.4 billion to bolster the school choice movement. A proposal released in February 2018 included $1.1 billion to be spent on private school vouchers and other school choice plans amid a 5 percent, or $3.6 billion, cut in the Education Department overall. DeVos’s 2018 fiscal year budget called for an additional $1.4 billion for expanding “school choice,” including a $250 million voucher increase and $160 million for a Charter Schools Program grant.73 The amounts of money, to be sure, were part of a wish list and remained subject to congressional approval. But given DeVos’s generous campaign contributions to the right-wing politicians who tend to advocate for “small government” in every other area, and lockstep endorsement of charters and “choice” by right-wing Republicans, it is not surprising that DeVos’s education budgets and priorities have received favorable hearings. In September 2017, for instance, the state of Indiana was awarded a $59 million grant for charter schools’ expansion, one of nine states to receive such awards, which totaled $253 million.74

  Even if charter schools succeed in satisfying the c
riteria of church-state separation, including factually accurate lessons in history and science, a broader problem remains unaddressed: it isn’t hard to imagine a future in which a small number of extremely wealthy individuals control large parts of America’s system of public education. Is it wise for any society to entrust the education of its children to such an unrepresentative group with distinct interests and convictions?

  To be sure, charter operators have a right to their religious beliefs and political views, and the presence of such viewpoints does not necessarily mean that their schools will be infused with them. There are many charter advocates who simply aim to deliver a quality education to America’s children and who are dedicated to equity and transparency. Many argue passionately and persuasively about the importance of creating a diverse education ecosystem. It is also worth remembering that the charter movement in the United States is large, fragmented, and complex, and includes many individuals and groups that sincerely wish to promote and improve public education.

  From the perspective of Christian nationalists and their allies, however, these earnest charter supporters must surely look like useful idiots. For DeVos and her army of think-tank warriors, “school choice” is part of an agenda of privatizing major public functions, including what is arguably one of the most important functions of government: education. This privatization, although it covers itself in libertarian rhetoric, is essential to the project of indoctrinating the next generation in the “right” ideology and the right religion—with the added benefit of funneling public dollars into the pockets of right-thinking businesspeople.

  Which brings us to the deceptive nature of DeVos’s doctrine of “choice.” Public education came into existence to serve the common good. It is open to all and held to meaningful standards; that is why taxpayers support it. Choice can have a useful role to play. But reducing public education to a consumer experience for parents that allows them to “choose” to funnel taxpayer money into schools that discriminate, teach pseudoscience and fake history, and promote contempt for those who are different isn’t a way to improve our system of education. It is really just a way to break our schools—and thus to fulfill D. James Kennedy’s fervent wish that “children may be delivered from this godless brainwashing and receive a godly education as Thou hath commanded.”75