Betsy DeVos – Forbes

When we think of our two biggest political parties, we generally see Republicans fighting for more privatization and Democrats fighting for more publicly sanctioned programs. What happens, then, when we introduce charter schools? They’re technically private institutions because they aren’t run by the state, but they also receive government funding, making them public as well. At the present moment, it looks like both parties are in a state of vertigo whenever they have to present an opinion on the topic, and this has only become more present in this past week as President Trump and Secretary DeVos, who have described themselves as huge fans of school choice, recently introduced a 2021 budget that would effectively eradicate the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP) and bring charter funding to a complete halt. According to The Washington Post, around 40% of all charter expansion since the 90’s has occurred thanks to this program and its several-billion-dollar endowments, and all that will ultimately disappear over the course of one fiscal year.

Pete Buttigieg is a major supporter of continuing to fund charters while holding them accountable – The Nation

Alternatively, then, this would be something for Democrats to embrace, right? Sadly, it seems the other side of the room is currently hopping back and forth on whether to accept these programs. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are both major proponents of pausing funding for all charter schools as soon as they would hypothetically enter office, while moderates are fighting for the abolition of for-profit charters but still holding onto those that receive public funding exclusively. Interestingly, this means that charters are essentially confined to the very middle of the left-right spectrum, radicals on both sides cursing them for their respective half of the public/private dichotomy present in their educational model.

Ultimately, Democrats are struggling to find out how to strengthen normal public schools and provide an adequate education to everyone without flippant private interference, while Republicans in office are mostly trying to get charter funding to shift over to other priorities. They’re problems of an equally perceived size for each party, and it has the principle of American school choice cornered with those who are willing to go beyond their party to establish their own platform. It’s a bleak future for these schools, because everyone seems to be picking away at these controversial programs until they find the one element they don’t like or that might be misconstrued as a conflict of interest in their political stance. Communities are turning against them at an alarming rate as government subsidies for schools districts have started thinning out, and legislation is constantly turning away from trying to find a way to help competing programs to coexist. While a lot of political candidates value our education, they’re viewing it from completely different angles than one another, and it’s going to make it difficult for consensus to come around with the current state of partisan divides.