On Wednesday, an estimated 1,000 parents and advocates from across the country gathered at the Department of Education and the White House against the rules.
Malachi Armstrong, the father of a preschooler who attends a charter school in Philadelphia, was among the participants, holding placards, wearing T-shirts with protest messages and repeated chants of “back from our schools.” Mr. Armstrong, who said his child attended a charter school in Philadelphia after his underfunded public school closed, called the proposed rules “pointless.”
“Charter schools want to be different,” he said. “They know about the hardships — and I’m sure the Department of Education knows — and how bad public schools can be.”
The meeting followed several high-profile charges against the proposed rules, including op-eds by Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire philanthropist and former mayor of New York, and Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat. In a letter sent last week, Senators Dianne Feinstein of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado joined Republicans and asked the department to review them.
The Biden administration has maintained funding at $440 million a year for the federal Charter Schools program, which has helped fund about half of existing charters by providing grants that help cover a range of startup costs. such as furniture and buses.
But in recent years, President Biden has joined the ranks of Democrats that have cooled down to charter schools, which are government-funded but independently run. The party had long embraced them as a compromise for taxpayer-funded vouchers for private school lessons, which Republicans support.
As a candidate, Mr Biden stated he was not a “charter school” fan,” which shocked many, as the schools had expanded under the charter-friendly Obama administration. During the campaign, Mr. Biden pledged to shut down for-profit charters — less than 12 percent of the country’s 7,700 charter schools — from federal funding.
