Sat Mar 11 2023 - The rise of agenda-based public charter schools in the U.S. is a worrying sign for the future of public education. | Zakareya Hamed

The rise of agenda-based public charter schools in the U.S. is a worrying sign for the future of public education.

Charter schools are taxpayer funded schools that operate independently of the public school system. They have the ability to set their own curricula and teaching methods with limited oversight, transparency, and accountability. As an organization, we’ve taken a position against school privatization and charter schools due to the disparities that privatization has led to.

Recently though, a new field of entities have sought to enter the charter schooling space. Religious institutions. Hillsdale College, a private, conservative Christian college in Michigan has been at the forefront of this movement, promoting a conservative Christian worldview. The college operates a number of charter schools across the country, known for their emphasis on so-called traditional values and classical education.

Hillsdale’s curriculum implicitly opposes the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The College has said that racism “should not” be discussed in schools. It openly calls for and implements conservative curriculum in fully government funded schools. With no accountability to local school boards and affected communities, these schools can easily prosper.

The classical education model is based on the idea that students should study the great works of Western civilization in order to understand the foundations of Western culture. This model is often associated with conservative political and religious views, as it emphasizes a traditional approach to education and a focus on European classics, widely removing global perspectives, literature, history, and culture from discussion. As a model, it has succeeded in bridging the gap between Church and State, with the model expanding significantly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“All of you pastors who have church buildings should be working on starting a [charter] school,” Hillsdale President Larry Arn told a crowd at the Turning Point USA Pastors Summit earlier this year.

While charter schools have the ability to set their own curricula as long as they suffice for standardized exams, the schools are still publicly funded and have some oversight. However, the oversight of charter schools is often more limited than that of traditional public schools, which has led to concerns about the potential for charter schools to promote political or ideological agendas.

Hillsdale’s ‘1776 curriculum,’ an unapproved private teaching structure under the American Classical Education model, which is used in dozens of Hillsdale-affiliated charter schools, was prompted directly at the call of former president Donald Trump. Similar to Hillsdale's American Classical Education, it teaches that Martin Luther King Jr. did not advocate for "the force of law" to be used to guarantee Civil Rights.

While new Charter School Program regulations introduced by Joe Biden's administration may play a part in helping mitigate the expansion of such schools in the future, he still has not ended federal funding for for-profit charter schools as previously promised.

Charter schools have inched closer to becoming an ideological tool, with Tennessee's governor last year requesting that Hillsdale establish over 50 schools in the state. These schools would be funded by taxpayers at the local, state, and federal levels. However, local communities have expressed concern, as these schools would no longer be accountable to them through local school boards. Instead, power would be primarily held by unelected officials in the Governor's office and the state's Department of Education.

In a rare victory in October, American Classical Education temporarily pulled out of its plans in Tennessee fearing rejection, a much needed show of citizens’ democratic power-hold on an increasingly corporatized education sector.

While some argue charter schools offer opportunities, the limited oversight of these schools has raised concerns about the potential for them to be used as a tool for promoting a religious conservative agenda. Such opportunities can, and in wealthy communities, are available for all students. The opportunities offered by charters do not offer 

 to students in the long run or in testing. In urban communities, the emergence of charter schools has largely defunded public schools to make way for schools run by Charter Management Organizations with no local relationships or understanding of the communities they operate in.

For years, the signs of charter education becoming a stronghold for interest groups have been apparent. In 2013, a charter school in New Orleans was raided by the FBI and found to be linked to the Turkish Gülen movement, although it was permitted to continue operating. Two years prior, Louisiana's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education shut down another charter school in the state linked to the movement. Allegedly, the Gülen affiliated charter school network earns nearly $500 million of public funds annually through its 120 schools nationwide. 

Now more than ever, as more interest groups begin to manipulate the versatility of the charter school model, it is time to strengthen American public education and return public funds back to public hands.

Charter schools must be regulated adequately, before it’s too late

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