The nation’s first charter school law was passed in Minnesota in 1991. Today there are roughly 3.8 million students enrolled in about 8,000 charter schools across the country. Charter schools are legal in 46 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
Over the past 30+ years, thousands of charter schools have failed, closed, and abandoned millions of students, parents, teachers, education support staff, principals, and others—all in the name of “choice,” “competition,” “innovation,” “accountability,” “results,” “empowering parents,” and “busting teacher unions” (see here, here, and here). In Michigan alone, 36% of charter schools fail in the first five years.
The lives of many have been disrupted by frequent charter school failures and closures. And many of these closures are sudden and abrupt, catching many off guard and leaving them stressed out and anxious about what to do next. Shock, anger, grief, and abandonment are often experienced by those left out in the cold by constantly-failing charter schools. When a charter school fails and closes, parents, teachers, and administrators have to scramble frantically to figure out how to place many students in another education setting with the least amount of disruption and instability.
Financial malfeasance, mismanagement, low enrollment, and poor academic performance are the top four reasons charter schools fail and close regularly. These long-standing problems usually operate together, they are interrelated, producing a perfect storm of continual failure and harm.
2025 will be no different. Hundreds of charter schools will again fail, close, and violate thousands of students, parents, teachers, education support staff, and principals. The top-down antisocial neoliberal offensive in education will remain strong. Powerful private interests will continue their onslaught on the public interest under the veneer of high ideals.
To be sure, as charter schools multiply across the country, even more closures and tragedies will occur. More charter schools equals more failures and closures. In this way, chaos and turmoil are further normalized in the sphere of education. Volatility and uncertainty become more entrenched. Vouchers and Education Savings Accounts, two other forms of education privatization, play a significant part in increasing anarchy in education as well.
Such chaos and disorder are the natural result of a “free market” education set-up that glorifies a fend-for-yourself ethos that embraces disorder, mayhem, and insecurity. Every irrational thing takes hold quickly in such a set-up where everyone fends for themselves and hopes that “things work out.” Meaningful guard rails exist nowhere and everyone is pressured to blindly embrace individualism, ego-centrism, consumerism, and competition, thereby undermining the general interests of society.
With no sense of irony, charter school promoters have gone so far as to characterize such turmoil and destruction as a “good thing.” In order to fool the gullible, they nonchalantly assert that numerous charter school failures and closures “might actually be a good thing.” They desperately want people to believe that it is perfectly natural, legitimate, and acceptable for a social responsibility like education to be commodified and marketized. Charter school closures supposedly “prove” that “the free market is working” and that charter schools are “accountable.” “Bad” schools, after all, should be closed so that new entrepreneurs can start new charter schools the same way an investor starts a new shoe store. But thousands of parents, students, teachers, education support staff, and principals brutally abandoned every week by failing charter schools beg to differ. They refuse to be disinformed and gas-lighted. It does not feel good to be violated and betrayed, especially in such a cold way.
Who thinks schools failing and closing all the time is in any way a good desirable thing? Especially in the 21st century? Is it possible to disguise frequent failure, closure, and destruction as something positive and healthy? Should people believe that no alternative exists to endless failure and chaos? Is it impossible to organize education in a human-centered way centuries after the scientific and technical revolution?
In this connection, it is important to stress that the American public school system is not failing, it is being methodically and intentionally destroyed by neoliberals who are then setting up failed charter schools and dividing people along different lines. Public schools have been ruthlessly subjected to the “starve it (of funds)—test it—punish it—privatize it” neoliberal strategy for 50 years. Neoliberals and their entourage are wrecking everything in order to rapidly seize public wealth in the context of a continually failing economy. People should reject all neoliberal disinformation about what constitutes “failure,” why something is “failing,” and why “it needs to be closed.” Neoliberals should not be deciding what is “bad” or “good” for education and society. Analysis and discussion that favor the people is needed.
In the final analysis, subjecting parents, students, teachers, and others to the law of the jungle while depriving public schools of billions of dollars is inhumane and unnecessary in the 21st century. Social Darwinism is outdated. Such a doctrine emerged in the late 1800s to divide people and justify imperialism, racism, and inequality. The whole notion of basing modern life on winning and losing is obsolete. Competition makes everyone a loser. Disorder, volatility, and leaving people high and dry are not inevitable or the “best of all worlds.” There is a human-centered alternative to this capital-centered world.
“Free market” education is socially irresponsible and destructive. Pro-social change is needed immediately. The need today is to defend the right to education while opposing the privatization and marketization of education. Say no to the commodification of education. Teaching and learning is a complex process that takes place over years in a multi-faceted web of direct human relations; it cannot be commodified, quantified, or rushed. Private interests should not be able to cash in on kids. Youth must not be exploited to enrich private interests. Such an outlook and approach molest the most basic premises and principles of human learning, growth, development, and dignity.
Privatization ultimately increases corruption, restricts democracy, raises costs, reduces efficiency, and lowers the quality of services. It does not improve things. It makes everything worse while enriching private interests. It prevents the healthy balanced extended reproduction of society by fracturing the economy and taking money out of it.
No public funds, properties, assets, or authority should ever flow to charter schools because charter schools, whether they are called nonprofit or for-profit, are fundamentally private entities. Calling something public 50 times a day does not magically make it public in the proper sense of the word. Public schools and charter schools have almost nothing in common. Charter schools are public only on paper. Public wealth must remain in public hands at all times.
In a modern society based on mass industrial production, public schools must be free, fully-funded, world-class, and controlled by a public authority worthy of the name. Private interests must not be permitted to touch public education or any social programs because these belong to working people and society.
The architects of the retrogressive neoliberal agenda in education and other spheres are unable and unwilling to affirm the rights of all. They cannot be relied on to open the path of progress to society. They will remain engaged in wrecking activity under the banner of high ideals. Neoliberals will continue to present themselves as saviors and guardians of education and society while actually destroying the fabric of education and society.
In the current context, everyone must remain vigilant, investigate and discuss everything non-stop, affirm their conscience, and speak up in their own name. Reject neoliberal bullying and aggression in all its forms. Defend the public interest. Fight for a modern nation-building project that puts human rights, not property rights, center-stage.
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Shawgi Tell, PhD, is author of the book “Charter School Report Card.” His main research interests include charter schools, neoliberal education policy, privatization and political economy. He can be reached at [email protected].
Featured image: In 2003, Granada Hills Charter High School in Los Angeles became the largest charter school in the United States. (Licensed under CC BY-Sa 3.0)
