^{The Bottom Line} Warren’s Plan to Ban Effective Schools

Democrat presidential candidate, Elizabeth Warren, seeks to ruin education if elected president. In a recent announcement she pledges to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on traditional public schools while stripping any federal funding of new charter PUBLIC schools. This is coming from someone who has previously strongly supported public charter schools.

Is it possible that she’s not aware that charter schools are, in-fact, public? Like other public schools, charter schools are open to all students, tuition free, publicly funded, staffed by certified teachers, and held accountable to state and national standards.

The big difference between traditional public schools and charter public schools is that charter schools are held more accountable for showing improved student achievement. This accountability is “traded” for more flexibility given to teachers and principals through customized teaching methods and curriculum. Also, flexibility is granted regarding the length of the school day and year. 

Maybe she needs to be reminded that nearly three million students attend charter schools nationwide. Choice is a positive value in education because parents have high expectations for their children’s education. Taking away that choice is detrimental.

Warren’s announcement is disingenuous. “Ensuring” public funding goes only to public schools is misleading, supporting a false narrative that charter schools aren’t public. Furthermore, she also plans to ban for-profit charter schools and would require existing public charter schools to meet the accountability rules that traditional public schools operate under. In essence, she would ban all charter schools, despite the fact that charter schools are created in neighborhoods where the traditional public schools are failing or significantly under-performing.

Experience has shown that the best educational outcomes occur when schools have quality teachers, effective leadership, and the autonomy to provide the best education the staff can deliver. They must also maintain high job satisfaction, give authority to principals, and deliver choice for parents. Charter public schools have all these characteristics. Warren’s plan to take all that away would be disastrous.