Comments Submitted by PSO to the U.S. Department of Education

The National Coalition for Public School Options (PSO) provides the following comments on the Department of Education’s (DOE) new proposed priorities and requirements for the Charter Schools Program (CSP).

PSO is a parent-based advocacy group that supports families and their pursuit of free and equitable access to education. We defend the family’s right to choose options that are safe, enriched, and suit the needs of each individual child. We give a voice to all options, all families and all backgrounds. PSO has worked with tens of thousands of families in 33 states over the last decade to fight for policies that empower parents to choose the best public education for their children.

PSO is exceptionally concerned that multiple provisions of the proposed rule will stifle – and in some critical places completely block – the development of much-needed charter school options for families. As DOE notes at the onset of the proposed rule, a major purpose of the CSP is to “expand opportunities for all students.” This proposed rule, if enacted, would do the exact opposite.

Further, the essential federalization and national micro-management of charter school policies and operations will have the impact of marginalizing parents, as other more powerful and organized interest groups have a far greater ability to impact the implementation of these national policies. Parents are much more able to directly interact with and truly impact policy and policymakers at the state and local levels, where education policy is generally developed. While the proposed rule purports to call for parent input, the cumulative impact of these rules and the federalization of policymaking would actually have the effect of marginalizing and disempowering parents with students of color being hurt the most.

Finally, DOE seems to have lost focus on perhaps one of the most compelling points about charter schools: Every single student in a charter school in America is there because of an active decision by their family that the charter school – that public school – is the best option for that student. Schools where students are assigned by address, not by choice, may benefit from layers of bureaucracy mandating various kinds of parental involvement or input. But in charter schools, parents have the ultimate power – the power to decide to enroll, as well as to stay or leave. The proposed rule inserts the federal government into that balance in unprecedented manners that ultimately will reduce public school options for parents.

With that overview, we would like to examine a few of the specific provisions that PSO believes would have extremely negative impacts on parents across the nation with the most drastic impact falling onto students of color.

The “Excess Seats” and “District Collaboration Agreement” Requirements Combined will Virtually Eliminate CSP-Support for Charter Schools Serving the Families that Need Them Most

The proposed rule creates a combination of requirements that will function as a poison pill for the development and growth of charters in places where parents need them the most. Many, if not most, urban and pervasively underperforming school districts also suffer from declining enrollment. Ironically, a key drive of that declining enrollment is the poor performing school system.

In this setting, perhaps more than any other, parents need options. The new rule, however, is focused on counting seats instead of counting opportunities, or counting family needs.

Layered onto this problem is the new requirement for a district collaboration agreement, which simply amounts to a district veto over CSP grants to charter schools. In places where state policymakers have created alternative authorizers and those authorizers are critical to providing options, this new provision is a not-so-veiled way to directly undermine that state policy.

The combination of these two provisions will make development and growth of charter schools in many of our most disadvantaged communities impossible, at least with any CSP funds. While this is bad policy, it also clearly raises serious legal questions, as discussed below.

Federal Micro-Management of Charter Operations Excludes Parents from Decision-Making

The more the federal government takes over charter policymaking and engages in micro-management of charter school operations and decision-making, the less parents will have true input and empowerment in the making of those decisions.

Parents have far greater ability to access and have meaningful input with state and local policy-makers. That is not to disparage federal policy-makers, but it is the simple and undeniable truth.

The entire concept of the charter movement rests on a few pillars – the most important of which from PSO’s perspective is that parents are the ultimate decision-makers. No student or family ever has been and never will be, assigned to, or forced to enroll in, or required to remain in a charter school. That is true parental empowerment, especially for those communities and families who otherwise would have not other options or choices.

The detailed provisions micro-managing charter operations, contracting and policy-setting are an inappropriate federalization of what should be state and local policymaking. Ultimately, the impact will be to limit parent empowerment by taking decisions out of their hands, and the hands of the charter schools they are able to access.

The New Overt “Political Assets” Test is Inappropriate and will Exclude Parents

The proposed rule creates a new “political assets” test – defined as “the ability to influence the distribution of resources, financial and otherwise." Parents will always lose this test relative to all the other institutional forces in education.

Parents don’t have PACs. Unlike many other education interests, parents don’t have dozens of federal lobbyists. PSO and other advocacy groups organize parents to make their voices heard as loudly as possible, but the reality is that parents generally have other things on their minds besides lobbying politicians or regulators – like working and raising their children.

PSO strongly believes any sort of political asset test would have the fairly obvious outcome of stacking the deck against parents, and urges it be removed.

DOE’s Legal Findings Related to the Rule are in Error and the Rule will have an Impermissible Discriminatory Impact Against Disadvantaged Parents

DOE presents two legal findings in advancing this proposed rule that are not supported. First, DOE asserts that the proposed rule “to the extent feasible” specifies performance objectives rather than the manner of compliance. With all due respect, the micro-management found in these rules is the very epitome of mandating specific manners of compliance as opposed to performance objectives. Take the required district collaboration agreements as an example. The goal may be that charter school led innovations be incorporated into traditional districts and schools when possible. But the “specific manner of compliance” mandated in the proposed rule actually creates a district veto power over CSP grants.

A second legal finding in error is that the proposed rule does not, “unduly interfere with state, local, and tribal governments in the exercise of their governmental functions.” This rule, taken as a whole and in individual parts, is an inappropriate federalization of K-12 educational policymaking. As discussed above, states that have made deliberate decisions to designate authorizers other than districts will find those policy decisions substantially undermined by this proposed rule.

Finally, even without in-depth statistical analysis, it is readily apparent that the impact of this rule will be to divert CSP funds away from – in some places probably banning them altogether – the communities and parents that need them the most. Those communities are also made up of parents that are disproportionately disadvantaged, students of color, or both. Because that disparate impact is readily apparent with even the most basic understanding of the charter school and educational landscape in the nation, if the proposed rule was adopted as proposed it would be extremely vulnerable to legal action.

Thank you for your consideration of these comments.

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