by John N. Hale
Deborah Meier, one of the founders of Central Park East, a network of independent choice schools in East Harlem, sums up the issue. Like many educators who led alternative schools, Meier by the early 1990s saw school choice as a natural extension of her work. As she noted in 1991, “By using choice judiciously, we can have the virtues of the marketplace without some of its vices.”38 However, choice has not been used wisely, and the intersections with race and class point to serious concerns about the underlying economic theory. The critique is not merely abstract—there is a dismal track record that justifies the concern.
Available statistical data do not decisively prove that choice has failed, but the results of choice after five decades are lackluster at best. Many choice advocates claim success based on the 2015 CREDO report from Stanford University, which stated that about 43 percent of charter schools outperformed traditional public schools in math and 38 percent outperformed in reading. The report also noted that this constituted a rise of more than 10 percent in both categories from the figures in a CREDO publication of 2013. The same report (and a follow-up in 2015) could point to cities like Boston, in which 92 percent of charters performed better than their traditional public counterparts in math and 81 percent in reading. In Newark, students in 77 percent of charters outperformed their peers in math, and 69 percent did so in reading.39 Widely recognized as one of the most comprehensive reports on the topic, it was heralded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as proof that urban charters were making a “significant positive impact.”40 From the perspective of those left behind, however, the more significant takeaway is one of caution. A more prudent interpretation emphasizes that about 60 percent of choice programs do not perform better than traditional public schools, as the CREDO report shows in analyzing twenty-five years of charter schools. As skeptics can point to in the same report, while northern cities like Boston or Newark are celebrated, other cities have experienced disastrous results. In Mesa, Arizona, 91 percent of traditional public schools outperformed or tested at the same level as charter schools in math and reading. In Orlando, 83 percent of traditional public schools outperformed charters in math and 84 percent did so in reading.41
The opposing readings of the CREDO report reveal a troubling truth. The data itself and the reliance on numbers to “prove” the effectiveness of a program obfuscate how we use research to evaluate school choice. Parents consistently look for an easy solution and statistical data may seem to point toward one. Claims based on quantitative data in relation to school choice can be problematic, however. As education researchers Erica Frankenburg, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, and Jia Wang note, such studies are prone to methodological critique from numerous angles. Important factors to consider in assessing the overall effectiveness of choice include the length of a longitudinal study, the extent to which English language learners are included in the study—if at all—and whether the study seeks to delineate national or state-by-state trends.42 Careful critique illustrates just how untenable are grand claims by the likes of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that cite reports like CREDO’s.
What the CREDO report does tell us is that enough numbers exist for us to state with conviction that school choice has not lived up to its promise. Viewed from a larger historical context centered on race, the system of choice is far from equal. In Detroit, a city that has converted nearly its entire public school system to charters or voucher programs, only 10 percent of choice schools outperform traditional public schools. Education Trust-Midwest, a nonpartisan research and advocacy group, found in 2017 that over 70 percent of Michigan’s charter schools were in the bottom half of the state’s school system.43 A 2014 report issued by the Network for Public Education, a public education advocacy group, found that the New Orleans public school system, which was replaced by a choice model after Hurricane Katrina, was one of the worst performing in the nation.44 In 2011, the Center on Education Policy, an independent organization committed to public education, found that students of color across the country whose parents used vouchers to enroll in private schools performed no better than traditional public school students. The Education Policy Program at New America, a think tank committed to solving pressing issues in education, was even less optimistic in its 2017 report, which concluded that vouchers’ impact on poor students and students of color was detrimental—some students’ reading scores dropped over 25 percent in just one year.45
Beyond statistical malleability, the funding and advocacy of school choice ideas remain corrupted by wealth and influence. Several examples illustrate the depth to which this corruption goes on behind closed doors and beyond the public gaze.
In some poignant cases, money associated with school choice networks has been implicated in elections pushing school choice advocates. In 2003, Richard and Betsy DeVos founded All Children Matter, which was billed as a “bi-partisan, non-profit advocacy organization supporting quality choices in public education for all Michigan students to improve academic achievement, increase accountability and empower parental choice in our public schools.”46 The organization in its first year spent over $7 million to support school choice advocates.47 In 2008, the Ohio Elections Commission fined All Children Matter over $5 million for campaign finance violations—improperly channeling $870,000 in contributions from a Virginia-based political action committee, steering it to candidates who embraced a pro-choice agenda as part of their platforms.48 The fines remained uncollected and the ruling unenforced at the time of DeVos’s appointment as secretary of education.
The contributions from choice advocates have held significant sway in many communities, as exemplified in Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston has been deeply immersed in the politics of school choice since 2018, when the Coalition for Kids—a well-funded 501(c)4 committed to improving education—entered the local scene. The organization’s rhetoric of “serving all children” carries with it a pro-choice message, and the slogan eased the way to putting all options on the table in South Carolina: magnets, public-private partnerships, and charter schools. Coalition for Kids has ties to Teach for America, an organization known to support charters and to undermine teachers’ unions. Coalition for Kids supported local Charleston school board candidates without teaching experience and seemed to place a premium on business acumen as opposed to experience in education policymaking. The coalition also funneled untraceable or “dark” money into local school board elections—the nerve center of education policy in the United States—and enabled “progressive” philanthropists of various political hues to flex their muscles and exercise undue influence locally.49
The powerful network of school choice advocates not only passed legislation that enabled the choice movement to prosper. It also successfully mounted a legislative and ideological assault on the staunchest defenders of traditional public education: teachers’ unions.
Teachers’ unions have long been understood to strengthen education. Unionized teachers improve the profession through higher salaries and better working conditions. This is often evident in higher test scores, not to mention stronger systems of traditional public education.50 Yet teachers’ unions have inspired controversy. Historically calling for robust spending on public education, higher salaries, and better working conditions, unions have rallied against school choice once it was clear that private, corporate entities controlled it—and choice advocates and the private sector have retaliated. Union resistance has increasingly been funded and led by the same powerful elites who supported, led, and otherwise influenced the school choice movement. Milton Friedman wrote of the antagonism directly in 1998, “Public dissatisfaction with the present school system is growing rapidly. Sooner or later pressure for free parental choice will succeed in breaking the hold of the union monopoly.”51 Facing increasing hostility, teachers’ unions have borne the brunt of public critique. This was on full display in 2011, as anti-union sentiment inspired new laws in states like Wisconsin and Ohio that all but eradicated collective bargaining, the right to s
trike, and publicly supported, comprehensive insurance plans.52
School choice advocates aligned with anti-union education reformers. One of the most visible, influential, and therefore controversial figureheads of the movement has been Michelle Rhee, who appeared on the cover of Time magazine in December 2008. Then the head of Washington, DC, public schools, Rhee stood defiantly in a classroom, holding a broom, with pursed lips and a serious gaze. The cover line reads: “How To Fix America’s Schools.”53 As the photo deftly captures, Rhee was billed as a no-nonsense reformer. Her uncompromising, gruff tactics were popular and welcomed by a public that had pegged public education as a sinking ship. In the last months of 2008—at the height of the optimism ushered in with the election of President Obama—Michelle Rhee symbolized radical reform. As a Teach for America alum, Rhee presented a popular solution of cleaning house, which she fully intended to do in Washington, DC. There she sought to abolish teacher tenure—the ultimate job security—in exchange for greater pay. It earned the scorn of teachers’ unions nationwide. Though tenure was protected in the compromise that followed, teachers were subject to a “pay-for-performance” plan, a program that financially rewarded those who improved their students’ test scores.54 Rhee’s work also included partnering with Teach for America as its leaders increasingly supported school choice. Charter schools, free from the regulations of traditional public schools, were often free to “break the mold” and hire teachers without traditional certification.55
In New Orleans—ground zero of school choice—a different narrative emerged. Choice advocates and reformers implemented brash new school choice policies there in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. One move, the widespread dismissal of seventy-five hundred traditionally licensed teachers—without pay or the promise of back pay—was the most controversial and sent a biting message.56 It was clear that veteran teachers had been diagnosed as a cancer on the progress of reform and had been targeted for removal.
Many of the dubious policies supporting school choice operations unfolded in Los Angeles, the second-largest school district in the country. After Minnesota, California was the next state to pass legislation that opened charter schools in 1992. The initial bill called for founding between fifty and one hundred schools. It also stated that teachers would not have to hold credentials and would not be granted tenure, and collective bargaining would only be used if written into the contract. The bill also provided the ability for a charter to secede from public school districts. It was the blueprint that many union-friendly states used, further entrenching the schism between teachers’ unions and choice advocates.
Since the passing of the legislation, California has been gripped by deadlock, unable to make changes to a charter bill that many legislators across the aisle agree need to be reformed. As California became home to more charter schools than any other state, the gridlock became all the more pronounced. According to Los Angeles Times reporter Anna Phillips, state legislators are “torn between allegiances to pro-charter philanthropists and the powerful teachers union.”57 The most recent manifestation of the charter school conflict was evident in the 2018 gubernatorial race. Democratic primary candidate Antonio Villaraigosa had been a vocal critic of teachers’ unions while mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013. He called unions “the loudest opponent and the largest obstacle to creating quality schools.” As mayor, Villaraigosa unsuccessfully attempted to take control of the Los Angeles Unified School District, putting forth plans to replace the elected school board with a committee led by himself, school choice supporters, and choice philanthropists. He also formed a nonprofit that took control of eighteen low-performing schools in the district.58
Because of Villaraigosa’s candidacy, the primary election in California’s 2018 gubernatorial race became a focal point for choice advocates. Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, donated a massive $7 million to Villaraigosa’s campaign. Philanthropist Eli Broad donated $2.5 million. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg donated $1.5 million. Bill Oberndorf, the hedge fund manager and Republican donor who succeeded Betsy DeVos as chair of the American Federation for Children, donated $2 million. And Walmart heiress and charter school philanthropist Alice Walton contributed $750,000. In all, charter supporters raised $23 million to support Villaraigosa’s bid for governor, compared to the totals raised by Gavin Newsom, $58 million, and his opponent, John Cox, just under $17 million.59 Despite this massive backing, Villaraigosa came in third in the primary and thus did not achieve a spot on the ballot in November, but deep divisions remained.
The nexus of campaign funding and education policy in California was troubled in 2017 when the president of the Los Angeles Board of Education pled guilty to felony charges and resigned his office. Refugio “Ref” Rodriquez was charged with three felonies and twenty-five misdemeanors mostly stemming from campaign finance violations but also including perjury and conspiracy to commit assumed name contribution.60 Prior to his fall from public office, he had been a spokesperson for the choice movement. In 2000, he started a nonprofit “social venture investment fund,” the Partnerships to Uplift Communities Schools network, seeking to financially support educators of color interested in founding and governing charter schools, using funds from the Walton Family Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and other philanthropic donors. Their investment, in hindsight, was unsound. Rodriguez cut checks for $265,000 for professional training, but it was unclear whether the funds had then been used for the stated purpose.61 Beyond the scandals and mixed statistics on test scores, school choice also challenges one of the essential premises of education in the United States, which is that our schools are open to all. Enshrined in the current Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which originated as Public Law 94–142 in 1975, is the principle that all students, regardless of ability, will be welcome in the public schools. Theoretically, school choice is available to all. Yet concerns were raised, beginning in the first years of the charter movement, that disabled children were being shut out. Initial reports indicated that charters were not enrolling students with disabilities to the same extent as traditional public schools. A study revealed that only 4 percent of charter students in Arizona received special education services, compared to a national sample of 10 to 12 percent. In California, one-quarter of all charter schools in California reported no students with special needs. The inequity had lessened by 2014, but charters still enrolled proportionally fewer students with disabilities nationally, 8 to 10 percent as compared to the 13 percent of students in traditional public schools, amounting to a difference of about two hundred thousand students. Some states provided additional funding for charters enrolling students with disabilities, and approximately fifty charters have existed nationally that catered specifically to this population. However, many have not provided services to meet the needs of children and students with learning or physical disabilities.62
Parents of students with disabilities may be discouraged from applying to enroll their children in charter schools or other schools of choice. One study, which covered nearly 6,500 schools in twenty-nine states, found that charter schools responded with less frequency to parents who posed questions indicating that their children had special needs. These practices effectively manipulate the applicant pool, excluding those who need specialized instruction.
When students with disabilities are enrolled in charters, they are more likely than others to be pushed out of school. When the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) popularized its “no excuses” model to critical acclaim beginning in 1992 and generous funding followed from the Gates Foundation and other prestigious donors, strict discipline became the signature feature of many successful charters that graduated their students and placed many in college. This dovetailed neatly with the no-excuses, get-tough rhetoric behind President George W. Bush’s signature No Child Left Behind policy, which ushered in more charters.63 As appealing as the rhetoric was to many, troubling studies on KIPP emerged as it was being touted as a panacea. The results were de
trimental to those children who did not fit the mold or meet charter school leaders’ expectations regarding punctuality and “grit.” In short order, they were suspended or expelled. One particularly damning report released by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA found that charter school administrators nationwide suspended students at a rate that was 16 percent higher than traditional public schools. Of a sample of 5,250 charter schools, the study reported, 374—or over 7 percent—suspended one-quarter of their students at least once. Nearly 10 percent of schools suspended Black students at a rate at least 10 percentage points higher than Whites. Further, the study noted that over 20 percent of charters suspended students with disabilities at a rate that was 10 or more percentage points higher than nondisabled students.64 These results are telling, because students with disabilities are twice as expensive as nondisabled students to educate, and students with severe disabilities, in which one’s performance in major life skills is limited, are eight to fourteen times more costly.65 Though some studies from KIPP and charter school associations reference attrition rates, and others are comparable to traditional public schools in the same district, another study showed significant differences in attrition rates and Black students.66
Results are mixed. With other exclusionary factors—like self-selection and pushing out challenging students—programs like KIPP and other charters do not serve the same student population as traditional public schools. If the highest-performing charter schools do not accept students that require special education, then comparisons are skewed.