War on Charter Schools: The NEA’s Self-Defeating Platform

The largest teachers’ union’s latest recommendation would functionally prohibit many charter schools, hurting students of color especially.

In its latest policy platform, the National Education Association (NEA), the largest union that represents my profession, has once again made clear that it cares more about institutions than about families and students. The platform’s opening paragraphs set out the NEA’s ostensible purpose: to do what’s best for students and shrink racial inequities. In reality, its policies would accomplish the opposite.

Some prescriptions it recommends for Congress and a Biden-Harris administration could be beneficial. So-called community schools that provide social services along with instruction could be a form of welfare amenable to conservative compromise. Yet others are just self-defeating. The NEA calls for smaller class sizes along with increased licensure, which would shrink the pool of employable teachers and thereby increase class sizes. And one policy, in particular, is outright damaging: to functionally prohibit many charter schools, publicly funded but locally run institutions. This would degrade American education and limit the opportunities for students of color especially.

On its face, the NEA platform allows the existence of charter schools. However, it seeks to “oppose all charter school expansion” that undermine traditional public schools and to “bar federal funding” for charter companies not operated by local districts. In other words, charter schools can exist so long as they function like other schools and in many cases accept no federal funding. This is akin to suggesting an athlete can run on a broken foot — theoretically possible but functionally not.

Consider Uncommon Schools, which manages 55 urban charter schools along the East Coast. Its schools serve predominantly economically disadvantaged students yet outperform even affluent districts. Doug Lemov, the pedagogical mind behind Uncommon’s success, has written numerous books, including Teach Like a Champion, which has sold over a million copies. My own master’s program featured progressive politics and friendship bracelets, but it was Lemov’s “Reading Reconsidered” that taught me both the theory and practice necessary to actually teach well. The innovation that the charter movement has wrought benefits more than just the students who attend charter schools. Unfortunately, because an organization outside of the local districts manages Uncommon’s schools, they could not exist within the NEA’s scheme.