Can Charter Schools Be Meaningfully Reformed?
Charter schools are the main form of school privatization in the United States. As such, they have never been part of a true organic grass-roots movement, that is, they have always been part of a top-down neoliberal agenda right from the start.1 This is why, for example, about 95% of charter schools have not been started, created, owned, managed, or operated by teachers. It is also why these contract schools, which are largely managed or owned by external organizations, are profit-driven whether they are designated as non-profit or for-profit schools.
Not surprisingly, the fraud, corruption, scandal, and failure brought about by charter schools in the U.S. over the past 35 years has been documented in thousands of books, articles, news reports, and websites. Privatization prioritizes profiteering over human rights and is notorious for increasing corruption, lowering the quality of services, and raising costs. More privatization means more harm to the public interest.
For 30+ years, state laws and statutes have been painstakingly written in a manner to promote this antisocial state of affairs, which is why the well-documented problems in the charter school sector have long been the norm and not some aberration affecting a few charter schools here and there.
Over the past 50 years major owners of capital have turned more aggressively to privatization to counter the inescapable law of the falling rate of profit in a desperate attempt to stay viable and avoid extinction. Thus, globally, many programs, services, spheres, sectors, including governance itself, have been rapidly privatized since the 1970s, resulting in great damage to the public interest. Pay-the-rich schemes of all kinds, including so-called public-private “partnerships,” have popped up everywhere and show no sign of diminishing. In this context, the “free market” is heralded as the end-all and be-all. It is no accident that charter school advocates insist that charter schools are marketized schools. They believe education is a commodity, not a right, that should operate according to the vagaries of the “free market.”
Jennifer Klein (2007) states that, “Surveying countries in all continents, a recent international report sponsored by The Club of Rome declared privatization to be ‘one of the defining features of our era’.” Klein stresses that privatization is an attack “on the working classes and on the public claims that workers and citizens are able to make on the economy’s resources and productivity.” For a valuable discussion and analysis of privatization, see The Privatization of Everything (2021) by Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian.
As the negation of democracy, equality, and the public interest, privatization necessarily causes many to demand that policies, laws, and rules be rewritten so as to put the public interest in first place and to safeguard the rights of people everywhere.
But when people see things go from bad to worse every year it becomes more urgent to realize that the problems confronting the public are not caused by unenlightened individuals, naïve legislators, uninformed politicians, or lawmakers with “bad ideas” who just need to be persuaded to write better laws and policies, but rather by entrenched historical class forces that act in their own interest. In other words, the issue is not “bad policy” or poorly-conceived laws but class policy, which is why school privatizers and their political representatives are unlikely to stop acting in their own self-interest and rewrite charter school laws and policies so that the problems associated with charter schools disappear. It is well-known that the current neoliberal set-up marginalizes and disempowers people, effectively preventing them from establishing arrangements that benefit them. So long as the class will of the rich dominates the class will of the non-rich, profound pro-social changes will remain elusive.
Over the years, various legal modifications to charter school laws here and there have done little, if anything, to slow the massive onslaught of problems associated with charter schools. Endless calls for more accountability, transparency, and oversight have changed little in the crisis-ridden charter school sector. If anything, the multiplication of charter schools has brought with it more crimes, profiteering, instability, and scandals. Every year things steadily worsen. Consequently, many people, including historian Diane Ravitch, have frequently said “you can’t fix a scam” when it comes to charter schools.
Some questions worth considering: What is to be done under such circumstances to change the situation in favor of the public? Is there any justification for school privatization in the first place? Do charter schools need to exist? Are outsourced schools really needed? Does profiteering belong in public education? Does the private sector have any legitimate claim to public funds that belong to the public? What would happen if traditional public schools were fully funded and not constantly vilified and set up to fail by neoliberals and privatizers? If today’s politicians and institutions are increasingly seen as irrelevant, ineffective, and obsolete what new organizing efforts should people embrace to open the path of progress to society? How can people rely on themselves to bring about deep changes that favor them?
Charter school laws in 47 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam were not written to create high-quality fully-funded public schools controlled by a public authority worthy of the name. They came into being to operate outside public control in order to funnel huge sums of public funds to private interests in the context of a continually failing economy—all in the name of “choice,” “innovation,” and “serving the kids.”
Under the difficult circumstances confronting us today, people from all walks of life need to create spaces for serious analysis and discussion about how to empower themselves to oppose privatization and other obstacles blocking the path of progress to society. Without sustained collective discussion, analysis, and organizing that unleashes the human factor and social consciousness the wrecking activity of the rich and powerful will continue. History is calling on everyone to take collective discussion, analysis, and action to new and different levels so that all that is rotten can be left in the past and a new and bright future can be built. Within all of this, it is important to identify which tactics and strategies work and which do not. For example, begging or pressuring politicians to “do the right thing” for months and years is exhausting and usually fruitless. It can cause burnout and disillusionment. Is there a better way to do things? What would it mean to reject this approach and rely on ourselves to figure out a better way?
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