After wavering and making confusing statements about charter schools three years ago when he was running for President, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who is running for President again, finally came out and issued a broad education plan on May 18, 2019 which, among other things, opposes charter schools.
Part two of Sanders’ ten-part “Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education” is titled, “End the Unaccountable Profit-Motive of Charter Schools.’
Sanders begins this part of his education plan for the nation by repeating the incorrect and refuted narrative, stubbornly promoted by the left, democrats, and “progressives,” that charter schools had humble, positive, grass-roots origins, as opposed to being conceived, organized, and implemented by neoliberals committed to destroying the natural and social environment.
After that, Sanders properly notes that: “Charter schools are led by unaccountable, private bodies, and their growth has drained funding from the public school system.” He also provides data showing that charter schools are significantly more segregated than public schools.
Sanders rightly demands that: “The damage to communities caused by unregulated charter school growth must be stopped and reversed.”
Reversing charter schools should include making reparations to public schools because of the severe harm charter schools have inflicted on them for more than 25 years.
Sanders goes on to call for a ban on for-profit charter schools and a moratorium on public funds for charter school expansion. Any time the funneling of public funds to the rich is stopped, that is a good thing for the economy, society, and people.
The remaining points in Sanders’ education plan correctly call for greater accountability in the notoriously low-transparency scandal-ridden charter school sector.
All these statements and demands should be supported because they serve education, the economy, society, and the national interest.
Finally, while Sanders states that “Every human being has the fundamental right to a good education,” this is not the same as saying education is a basic human right. The phrase “fundamental right” means something specific under U.S. law, namely that a law is “fundamental” if it is explicitly or implicitly expressed in the constitution. This does not, however, speak to whether said right enshrined in the constitution is an inalienable human right that government must guarantee in practice.
For its part, the billionaire-backed National Alliance of Public Charter Schools is self-servingly mischaracterizing Sanders’ opposition to charter schools as an attack on “what African Americans want”—the same African Americans that have been disrespected, abandoned, and betrayed by thousands of charter schools that have closed over the years.
Unfortunately, when all is said and done, despite the many positives of his belated position on charter schools, Sanders, as he did three years ago, will again play the calculated role of betraying millions of people who do actually want a much better society. Millions want an alternative to capitalism. People are fed up with an economy that cannot provide for the needs of the people. Sanders knows he will not be President and can afford to sound bold, daring, and pro-social. As he did three years ago, he will hand-over millions of supporters and voters to the Democratic party, which has long supported charter schools and other antisocial arrangements. Of course, this “hand-over” did not go so smoothly in 2016, but it is the aim of Sanders’ 2020 campaign for President.
Everyone, regardless of political affiliation, should vigorously oppose nonprofit and for-profit charter schools. These privately-operated, test-obsessed, segregated schools that oppose unions and have high teacher turnover rates have caused immense harm to the social environment. The call of the times is to defend public education and deprive the rich of their ability to dictate affairs in education and other spheres.