Jeb Bush Gets It Wrong

 Earlier this month, Jeb Bush released an op-ed to argue against "cuts" (more on that in a moment) to federal spending on charter schools. It's loaded with specious arguments. Let's tick off the items

First, Bush argues that our current education is designed as

a one-size-fits-all factory model of education, created in the 1890s to build a workforce for a factory-model economy.

The "factory model" rhetoric has been debunked many times, but Bush's variation is particularly silly. At the dawn on the 20th century, the enrollment rate for 5 through 19 year olds was around 30% for Blacks and 60% for Whites. Nobody was in school to "build a workforce," because the workforce was composed primarily of people who had not finished school; child labor was everywhere, and it took several decades in the 20th century to pass federal child labor laws. In short, factories were not depending on or even much looking for high school graduates.

public charter school

Bush still wants to push the industry's continued insistence that charter schools are public schools. They aren't. They aren't even interested in saying so when it doesn't suit their purposes. And the courts often agree. A public school operates transparently and is run by elected taxpayers. It has to account for every dollar it spends. And the public owns the building and the materials in it. Also, it doesn't operate as a shell for a massive for-profit business. A school that does meet all those requirements is not a truly public school. A school that doesn't meet any of those requirements is absolutely not a public school.

Unfortunately, there are special interests — and those wedded to the past — who cling to an outdated system. Rather than creating a modern education system that adapts to students and gives them the freedom and flexibility to find their right school and learning environment, they wrongly force each to conform to a standardized and obsolete approach.

The irony of this complaint, coming from Mr. Let's Make Everyone Use The One Size Fits All Common Core, is thick. Back when Bush was pushing that failed monstrosity, millions of teachers complained that the Core would restrict them and keep them from doing their job--which capable teachers understand is to meet each student where she is and get her what she needs to grow and learn. I would point out that schools are different from when Jeb was attending in the late sixties/early seventies, but of course he went to Ivy Preptastic Philips Andover.

But in the Jeb world, teachers are a naughty special interest that, for some reason. Maybe teachers are for some reason opposed to finding newer and better ways to do the work they've devoted their lives to/ Or maybe Bush is just full of it on this point.

But he needs a villain somewhere, because naughty forces are Up To Something.

This outdated mentality has led the U.S. House to pass a federal budget that cuts education funding to millions of public school students who choose to attend public charter schools.

This is wrong on several important points.

First, the "cuts." He's talking about the Charter Schools Fund, a federal stack of money set up to fund the launch and expansion of charter schools. First established in 1994, the CSF has doled out roughly $4 billion dollars, and according to the Network for Public Education, at least $1 billion of that has gone to waste and fraud, including charters that didn't even open. The CSF was supposed to get a $40 million bump this year; instead the House decided to leave the CSF standing at $40. So talking about cuts is the same old dodge used by many advocates of one cause or another-- nothing was actually cut, but they didn't get the raise they were looking.

Next, note that Bush is claiming that this will take funding from millions of students, as if they're going to be tossed out of their current charter because the feds cut off the money tap. But CSF monies are used to launch or expand charters, not sustain them. 

However, there is a problem for charters in the part of the budget that Bush quotes. It's this:

SEC. 314. None of the funds made available by this Act or any other Act may be awarded to a charter school that contracts with a for-profit entity to operate, oversee or manage the activities of the school.

Charters have long slid by on the distinction-without-a-difference between for profit charters and nonprofit charters owned and/or operated by for profit businesses. This would slam that door shut on some profiteers.

This all makes Bush sad, because, you know, it's all For The Children (though at no point does he suggest that the charter operators simply forego their profits so that they can keep taking care of the kids, because For The Children has limits). This is the most disingenuous part of the charter argument--why, exactly, does a system of robust charters have to rest on companies making a load of profit at public expense. The answer, of course, is that it doesn't (and there are plenty of charters that stand as proof of this). 

In short, anyone arguing that the "no for-profit" clause is bad for children is slinging baloney, because the real explanation they need toi provide is one that shows why charter schools can only exist if someone is profiting from them. 

Bush tries to float some tired, vague and unsubstantiated claims that according to one test (NAEP) some charters sometimes get better results (i.e. test scores) for some students. "Education choice helps all students succeed," Bush says, except that after a couple of decades of choiciness, there's still no compelling body of evidence to suggest that it's true. 

Also, now that there's pandemic stuff going on, choice is even more popular. Especially in Bush's old state of Florida, where the governor's declaration says that public schools may not mandate masks--but charters and private can do as they wish. It is the most blatant version of the policy that Bush spearheaded back in his gubernatorial days--just keep undercutting the public schools and make the charters and privates look better and better by comparison.

He's sure that all this is politics, which makes sense, because federal support for charters was born of politics, and Bush has used politicking to further the charter industry and to push Common Core, and also hoped that his education politics would give him a signature issue to help propel him further in politics. And of course, where there's politics, there are evil unions:

Teachers’ unions and their allies in Congress see students who choose public charter schools as a threat to the education model that they control. And unions fear that choice will lead to fewer students attending schools that fund their private coffers.

The subtext is that same old narrative. Teachers unions control the school system (although, when they were on his side for pushing the Core, that didn't do any good), and the school system itself is just a giant scheme to collect money for the union. Is every teacher in on it (even the ones who vote GOP), or are they all just dupes? And is Bush aware that charter schools can be unionized as well, and that the unions actually tread lightly around charters because they have charter teaching members?

Bush throws in a few more whoppers. Cutting charter funding will hurt students, "especially special- needs students" except that charters are notorious for squeezing out IEP students or just exercising the clause that says a charter school is an exercise of parental choice and therefor voids any rights to an IEP. 

But "students over systems," declares Bush as he demands that Congress put back money that funds a charter system and not students. Plenty of charter fans will keep beating these same drums, but in the end, this House budget proposal slows growth on a fund that is rife with fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars, and closes the door for profiteers to hoover up taxpayer dollars for their own private profit.