By Jason L. Riley | The Wall Street Journal
The candidate calls for a moratorium on charter schools.
It’s bad politics and even worse policy.
Senator Bernie Sanders pitched his plan to roll back
Charter schools at a town-hall in South Carolina on May 18, 2019. His proposed
cuts in Charter school funding would be redistributed to struggling public
schools.
Black voters had little use for Bernie Sanders when he
sought the presidency in 2016. In the South Carolina primary, exit polls showed
him winning only 14% of the black vote, while 86% went to Hillary Clinton. The
Vermont socialist knows he must up his game with this constituency to have any
chance of winning the 2020 Democratic nomination, but his recent attack on
school choice may wind up costing him minority support.
Mr. Sanders called Saturday for more regulations on
existing charter schools and a moratorium on federal funding for new ones. “The
proliferation of charter schools has disproportionately affected communities of
color,” said the senator. That’s true, but the effect has been positive, which
is why black support for more education options is so strong.
In a poll released earlier this month by Democrats for
Education Reform, 58% of black Democratic primary voters expressed a favorable
view of charter schools, while 31% opposed them. Among Hispanics, the breakdown
was similar—52% to 30%. But among white Democratic primary voters, only 26%
supported charters, while 62% viewed them unfavorably. A racial divide also
surfaces when people are asked about school vouchers. “African American (56%)
and Hispanic (62%) respondents are considerably more supportive of vouchers for
low-income families than are whites (35%),” according to a recent Education
Next survey.
In Florida’s closely contested governor’s race last year,
the Democratic candidate, Andrew Gillum, campaigned on closing charters and
ending a tax-credit program that allows underprivileged kids to attend private
schools. He lost to Republican Ron DeSantis, who supported school choice.
According to William Mattox of the James Madison Institute, a state think tank,
it was the backing of tens of thousands of black
school-choice supportersthat helped put Mr. DeSantis over the top.
Donald Trump and Barack Obama don’t agree on much, but
both men understand that traditional public schools aren’t cutting it for
millions of low-income children. Both of Mr. Obama’s education secretaries,
Arne Duncan and John King, were vocal proponents of charter schools. And Mr.
Trump could not have tapped a stronger school-choice advocate than the current
secretary of education, Betsy DeVos.
Mr. Sanders’s claim notwithstanding, it is the
traditional public school system, not the alternatives, that disproportionately
hurts minority students. Why should black parents be expected to pledge undying
loyalty to an education model that has been failing their children for
generations? Black and brown kids are assigned to the most violent schools with
the least effective teachers and staff, while the unions and their political
allies repeatedly call for—and receive—more funding and little accountability.
Mr. Sanders will find support for his attack on school
choice from civil-rights groups who take money from teachers’ unions, but he
shouldn’t mistake NAACP support for black support. Many black families are
convinced that school choice is the solution, not the problem. Which is why
there are tens of thousands of minority children languishing on charter school
wait lists in cities across the country.
Repeated studies have demonstrated that charter schools
are closing racial gaps in academic achievement. Whether the measure is test
scores, graduation rates or college readiness, charter students consistently
outperform their peers in traditional public schools. Charter high schools make
up only 10% of the country’s 26,000 public high schools. But according to the
latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, charters comprise three of the
top 10 public high schools in the country, and 23 of the top 100. Low-income charter-school
graduates complete college at two to four times the national average for their
peers.
This debate over K-12 education reform ought to inform
the one over college admissions, and if Bernie Sanders and the other 387
Democrats running for president wanted to be really bold, they’d connect those
dots for voters.
To the extent that successful elementary- and
secondary-school models are permitted to expand, there is less reason for
college administrators to use racial preferences or “adversity” ratings. Socioeconomic
determinism is a dubious notion. Low-income black charter-school students in
major cities outscore children from wealthy white suburbs on standardized
tests.
Economically disadvantaged Asian students outperform middle-class black
kids. If family income matters so much in determining the education prospects
of a child, why were fabulously wealthy families caught lying and cheating
their way into the University of Southern California?
Race-based affirmative action in higher education has
resulted in fewer black graduates and more racial tension than we would have
had otherwise. Using “adversity” as a proxy for race is unlikely to improve the
situation because holding people to lower standards for whatever reason doesn’t
help them advance. The time is long overdue to end these policies, not tinker
with them. Allowing successful charter schools to expand is a good first step.
