Charter Schools Are Not A “Republican” Thing

As I noted earlier this week, a group of anti-reform activists in Colorado recently passed an amendment to the state Democratic Party platform opposing the Colorado chapter of Democrats for Education Reform and calling on the organization drop “Democrats” from its name.¹

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time DFER has been attacked by groups from within its own party. Much of the ire directed at DFER is due to its support for public charter schools, which opponents portray as a part of a Republican plot to dismantle public education.

Those opponents include groups like the American Federation of Teachers, New York State United Teachers (an AFT affiliate), and Alliance for Quality Education (which receives – surprise! – major funding from AFT), who together launched a website calling DFER and its supporters “Democrats in name only,” while insinuating that the organization is a kind of political Trojan Horse backed by wealthy GOP donors like the Koch Brothers and Betsy DeVos.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, but the teachers unions and their allies have repeatedly demonstrated they have no compunction about misrepresenting the facts when it suits their interests. Furthermore, their contention that DFER’s support for charters is somehow antithetical to the values and beliefs of the Democratic Party conveniently ignores the integral role that Democrats have played in the charter school movement over the past thirty years.

To illustrate this point, I created the table below listing the states that have charter school laws on the books, as well as the year in which those laws were enacted. It also shows which party (blue for Democrats and red for Republicans) controlled the governorship, the senate, and the house in each of those states when their charter laws were passed.

The data makes clear that charter schools are not a “Republican” thing, but one of those rare issues around which Democratic and Republican lawmakers could find common ground to provide children with much-needed educational options. In some cases, such as my home state of Louisiana, Democrats can actually take full credit for the introduction of charters since their party held a “trifecta” in state government at the time.

In short, those who call DFER and its supporters “Democrats in name only,” are either ignorant of the party’s history or are simply trying to rewrite it. But if they think that pro-reform Democrats are just going to roll over while they are attacked for trying to expand educational opportunities for kids, they are sorely mistaken.

As DFER president Shavar Jeffries said in a response to the dustup in Colorado this week: “If our intra-party opponents would prefer counter-productive family warfare as opposed to unity around shared values, this should be clear too: We stand with the millions of families across our country demanding access to high-quality public schools and the thousands of elected Democrats who fight tirelessly to ensure they get it.”

“We are not going anywhere,” he added.