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Forbes | December 14, 2019
By Jeanne Allen

As the teachers' union-sponsored “Public Education Forum 2020," winds down in Pittsburgh this weekend, let’s state the obvious truth: our nation’s education system is shockingly failing most students and teachers.

On national, international, and local data points, most schools are failing to provide the personalization and mobile economy necessary to teach and learn. And rather than offer effective solutions for students in desperate need of revolutionary change, the Democratic presidential candidates scheduled to be at the forum have already embraced the status quo, backing programs and proposals that add more power and money to failing institutions.

Something we also did not hear during this December 14 event: that American education today is inadequate for most because parents do not have enough power, and because public dollars are spent on bureaucracies that deny educators freedom and funds to teach and excel. Rules, not results, are valued in a system that looks exactly like it did 150 years ago.

Enter one of the most path-breaking solutions in the history of public education: charter schools.

Charters were first designed nearly 30 years ago to turn the top-down, mismanaged, financially inefficient, and educationally failing status quo on its head. They give educators and citizens the ability to start new schools that are tightly regulated for outcomes and financial integrity, but free to operate – and innovate – in any way that faculty and parents believe works for their children.

The result? In almost every place they’ve opened, charter schools have created a revolution in educational excellence, especially for so many of our nation’s most vulnerable students. How? Because, among other things, charters are a parent’s choice, accountable for results, and able to be closed should they underperform. And that’s a good thing!

Between 1992 and 2011, only 15 percent of charter schools were closed, mostly because of financial challenges caused by state and local politics, not the school itself. Nevertheless, the indisputable academic results that charter schools produce in proficiency and progress have made them sensibly embraced by leaders in both parties.

Because charters work so well, and are subsequently so popular, defenders of the old public education empire have been losing their grip. Since it’s a bit harder to condemn parents who simply want the best for their kids and vote with their feet, the public school industry fights back by attacking the very schools that rescue kids and offer them bright futures. Over the years the attacks have only become nastier, with teachers unions smearing charter school proponents as everything from “anti-public education” to “fraudulent,” and worse.

Alas, on Saturday we can expect charters schools to either have a starring role – as the lead villain, of course – or just be ignored. Rather than praise innovation and demand the kind of flexibility that charters prove work, the organizations hosting the forum will instead be using their voices to secure commitments from the presidential candidates to protect, defend, and, in fact, expand the status quo. While purporting to represent education, these powerful entities are steadfastly committed to reducing parents’ ability to choose schools that better meet their kids’ needs outside of their zip code, and will make lockstep agreement the price of support.

At their core, charter schools believe that the best way to arrive at success is to be free to pursue it and measured regularly. Prior to charter schools starting, there were no performance indexes for any school in the Pennsylvania’s schools, or elsewhere. The pressure on traditional education applied by the advent of charters, multiplied by the freedom by which charter schools can operate to perform (and not guaranteed enrollment regardless of success or failure), resulted in states creating accountability measures that track and report educational progress.

Student success, curriculum flexibility, parental choice. These are the discussion themes the presidential candidates should be having. Instead they are working to curry favor with powerful unions that boast an overabundance of public money and resources to deploy in elections.

Do the candidates honestly think they’re being invited to share novel ideas and debate the best way to educate kids? If so, they’re fooling themselves.

If Public Education Forum 2020 was to be a forum about what works, then the candidates would be listening to Pittsburgh’s – and the nation’s – best school leaders, regardless of sector. They’d be probing the creative minds of local leaders from schools like Propel Schools. Instead these schools, their leaders, and the happy families they serve were not even invited.

Saturday’s forum is about nothing more than which candidates will best do the special interests’ bidding. The more they agree, the more likely they are to get endorsed. That’s it.

It’s a disheartening truth to be sure. But if 2016 is any consolation to those candidates who might want to step up and put kids ahead of politics, Hillary Clinton gave the unions what they wanted, sang their tune, and got their endorsement. And as we know, it didn’t translate into a win. To avoid a similar fate, the candidates should add history to their education lessons before they take the stage.

Jeanne Allen is Founder and CEO of CER, the Center for Education Reform.