Editor’s note: On Wednesday, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Hoover Institution hosted a timely event, “A New Federal Push on Private School Choice? Three Options to Consider.” This week we are running guest posts by the event’s panelists, offering their advice for the new Administration and Congress. Below is an article by Andy Smarick, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. These posts do not necessarily reflect the views of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Many education reformers are excited by President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to create a large-scale federal school choice program. However, others worry that Uncle Sam’s inevitably clumsy meddling in what has been a successful state-led movement would warp the policies, complicate the politics, and undermine the popularity of school choice. Yet there’s a way—based largely on the lessons of the highly successful federal Charter Schools Program (CSP)—for the Trump administration to boost school choice while empowering families and educators and respects state K–12 authority.
Over the past fifteen years, the most prominent (and polarizing) K–12 reforms have tended to be centralizing, standardizing initiatives led by the federal or state governments, such as federally prescribed school classifications and interventions, new statewide content standards and assessments, and state-determined models for educator evaluation. But at the same time, states have been rapidly, though quietly, creating and expanding private school choice programs that differentiate school options and decentralize authority to parents and nonprofits. In fact, growth has been remarkable: today there are about fifty state-level private school choice programs—including scholarships, tax credits, and education savings accounts (ESAs)—expanding schooling options for about 500,000 students. The pace of expansion shows little sign of slowing.
Is there anything the federal government could or should do to help these programs succeed?
The hot-take answer is no. We are in the throes of a pronounced backlash to centralizing efforts, evidenced by testing opt-outs, the continuing resentment toward Common Core, and the recent replacement of No Child Left Behind by the decentralizing Every Student Succeeds Act. So why complicate the policy and politics of private school choice by engaging Uncle Sam, especially since these programs have expanded in recent years without any federal entanglement? Moreover, some school choice antagonists are especially opposed to private school choice; they would vigorously fight any supportive federal efforts.
However, the federal government’s extensive experience supporting charter schools militates against both sets of concerns. Two decades ago, chartering was in a position similar to private school choice today. Several states had passed laws to develop new schools that would be choice based. These laws often said little about what kinds of schools should be created, where they should locate, or how many there should be. Charter programs simply created the conditions for school development and parental choice. Private school choice programs do the same. They do not mandate the creation of certain types of programs, nor do they direct families’ choices.
Politically, private school choice is far less revolutionary today than chartering was twenty years ago. At that point, charter schools were only a few years old and existed in only a handful of states. They summarily ended America’s century-long practice of having one government body per geographic area operating public schools. K–12 private school choice programs, on the other hand, have now been operational for a quarter century, and they exist in thirty states. Chartering already diversified the range of school operators allowed to participate in a state’s system of K–12 education; choice programs merely expand that range to include faith-based and private bodies—a decision approved by the US Supreme Court in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris in 2002.
Three lessons from the charter school movement
Three lessons from the charter school movement suggest a federal role could be quite helpful, if that role is clear and limited.
Chartering. The first lesson is that Washington did get involved in chartering. The federal public CSP started in 1994. It was appropriated $333 million in fiscal year 2016; it has awarded about $3 billion to state educational agencies (SEAs) since 1995. However, the federal government has mostly respected and followed the states’ greenfield approach. That is, the federal government has mostly not layered its policy priorities onto chartering. It has not tried to compel states to fundamentally change their charter laws, dictate the creation of certain types of schools, or prohibit certain models. Instead, through the CSP, a relatively small grant competition, it has helped aspiring founders plan and then open schools of their own choosing.
Startup Funding. The second lesson is that the federal government has primarily focused its funding on the startup of new charter schools (with smaller amounts of federal funding having been made available for charter facilities and national activities). Most CSP dollars are allocated to states through a competitive grant process, and states then subgrant funds to school founders, also on a competitive basis.[i] These subgrants last only a few years, helping planning teams get through the authorization process and early operations—expensive activities for which state funds are typically unavailable.
Since its inception, the CSP’s influence has been profound. It has provided startup funds to more than 4,200 schools; more than 60 percent of all charter schools that have opened were supported by a CSP SEA grant. But Washington has functioned simply as an early-stage investor in a state-led process. Washington does not decide what types of charters it likes best and does not provide ongoing streams of revenue. It helps states help social entrepreneurs get off the ground. Without that support, hundreds if not thousands of today’s charter schools would have never started. But after the startup phase, Uncle Sam backs off, allowing each school’s future to be determined by its educators, authorizer, and state policy environment.
Challenges. The third lesson is that the federal government (and just about everyone else) underestimated the challenges of charter school authorizing. It is difficult to hold accountable vastly different, modestly regulated schools of choice. As a result, in the early days of chartering, too many troubled schools started, and too many stayed open for too long. Not only were thousands of students badly served, but this state-level policy innovation suffered politically. The federal investments in chartering did little to support the development and refinement of charter schooling’s new approach to accountability.
A promising approach to federal support
These three lessons outline a promising approach to federal support for private school choice. Namely:
- Washington should respect that these state laws seek to expand and diversify options and that they defer to the decisions of social entrepreneurs and families. The federal government should not try to fundamentally change these laws, accomplish particular federal policy priorities through these programs, or attempt to privilege or disadvantage certain types of schools.
- A federal investment should primarily comprise short-term grants to help the startup and early operations of a diverse array of promising programs.
- A portion of these federal funds should support state efforts to design and implement various accountability strategies for schools participating in these programs.
That is why the Trump administration should propose in its first budget submission a new initiative called the Diversity and Choice Incentive Demonstration program. It would aim to create a diversity of high-quality, high-demand, highly accountable programs under state school choice programs.
The program would have two competitive priorities: spurring the development of diverse, high-quality, high-demand options and catalyzing the development of innovative approaches to school and operator accountability under school choice programs. Applicants could craft proposals responding to one or both of the priorities.
Its annual appropriation would start at a modest $250 million, with $10 million reserved for federal administration and national activities. Approximately $240 million would be granted annually. Eligible applicants would include SEAs, other state-level entities responsible for or related to the state-choice programs, local educational agencies, nonprofit organizations, or a consortium of these. Faith-based organizations would be eligible, consistent with federal regulations protecting their right to participate in federal grant programs “on the same basis as any other private organization.” Applicants would need to be located in states with a qualifying state school choice program.
Ideally, the US Department of Education would award ten grants annually, preferably to applicants in ten different states. Although the average award would be approximately $24 million over three years, the department could make larger or smaller grants to reflect the size of the state, scope of the project, and other relevant considerations. Those crafting the federal application and proposal-scoring rubric should recognize that these state-level programs are primarily designed to facilitate choice. Accordingly, evaluators should give preference to applications that elevate parental demand and atypical options outside the traditional public school and public charter school system. That is, successful proposals should reflect the educational preferences and choices of families in various communities rather than experts’ preferences.
Grant-receiving proposals under the first competitive priority might include an existing network of private schools (including a faith-based organization, such as a diocese) aiming to start new campuses, a human-capital provider training leaders to start new schools, or a new nonprofit seeking to create tutoring services purchasable with ESAs. Grant-receiving proposals under the second competitive priority might include an SEA aiming to develop an inspectorate approach to assessing program performance, a consortium of providers collaborating to develop a set of shared performance measures, or a nonprofit aiming to create a system for publicizing information on provider performance. The thread connecting these (and other successful) proposals is the development of diverse, high-quality, highly accountable, choice-based programs.
Over the past two decades, the CSP has played an invaluable role in the growth of chartering. It breathed life into state-level legislation that created new programs and expanded parental choice. If Washington can learn the CSP’s lessons—meaning, keep Uncle Sam’s ambitions modest, focus on increasing supply, and add an accountability element—the federal government could play a similarly constructive role as states embrace private school choice.
Editor’s note: Previous versions of this piece were published by Bellwether Education Partners in “16 for 2016: 16 Education Policy Ideas for the Next President,” and by the American Enterprise Institute.
Andy Smarick is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he works on education and related domestic and social policy issues. Concurrently, he serves as president of the Maryland State Board of Education and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins School of Education. All opinions expressed herein are his and his alone.
The views expressed herein represent the opinions of the author and not necessarily the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
[i] In states that choose not to apply for an SEA grant, charters are allowed to apply directly to the US Department of Education. But only eleven of these small grants have been made since 2010. See US Department of Education, “Charter Schools Program Non-State Educational Agencies (Non-SEA) Dissemination Grant,” http://www2.ed.gov/programs/charternonsea-dissemination/ index.html. In addition, since 2010, the program has allowed direct grants to successful school operators, but these account for less than 9 percent of the CSP’s historical grants. See US Department of Education, “Charter Schools Program Grants for Replication and Expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools,” http://www2.ed.gov/programs/charter-rehqcs/index.html.