Parents waited in line outside a community center on a muggy afternoon in Northwest Houston to learn more about an unapproved charter school. It was Heritage Classical Academy’s fourth attempt to receive approval from the Texas State Board of Education. The application was hardly altered. However, the political landscape had changed significantly. Speaking with those engaged in these initiatives gives the impression that the public has hardly noticed as the game’s rules are being changed in real time.
Americans were once persuaded that the charter school movement was an impartial, nearly technocratic experiment. Competition leads to better schools. Children in underprivileged urban areas have a lifeline. In any case, that was the pitch in the early 2000s. However, the money coming into the movement today reveals a more nuanced picture, and it’s difficult to ignore the fact that the largest donors aren’t particularly politically diverse.
According to an Associated Press analysis of tax filings, philanthropists and their private foundations have contributed nearly half a billion dollars to state-level charter advocacy organizations since 2006. With $144 million donated to 27 organizations, the Walton Family Foundation, which is managed by the Walmart heirs, is in the lead. In Washington state, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been equally active, giving about $25 million to a single advocacy group that has occasionally relied on Gates funds for almost its whole yearly budget. In any conventional sense, that is not philanthropy. Infrastructure is that.
The influence has been remarkably quiet. According to Brookings education policy expert Jon Valant, these groups have extraordinary power, much of which goes unnoticed by the general public. Although state charter associations are prohibited from engaging in direct political campaigning due to their nonprofit status, their funders frequently contribute to political action committees that support similar causes. It’s a neat setup. It’s probably too neat.
The cultural pivot, on the other hand, seems to be the true story that lies beneath the narrative. Charter schools were long linked to technocrats, urban policy think tanks, and center-left education reformers. That alliance has deteriorated. According to a recent Network for Public Education report, hundreds of charter schools—mostly in red states—market themselves using religious music videos, classical branding, and references to “faith-friendly environments.” After Donald Trump’s first inauguration, almost half of them opened. There are at least 66 more planned.
Former Education Secretary and Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos has never concealed her conviction that school choice can further what she has referred to as God’s “kingdom.” Her network has assisted in promoting charter schools intended to appeal to conservative families by collaborating with Christian nationalist allies. The nation’s first religious charter school, which will incorporate Catholic doctrine into every subject, was recently approved in Oklahoma. Although that ruling is being contested in court, the precedent it establishes is already changing discussions in other statehouses.
According to the NPE report, for-profit management firms are almost twice as likely to operate right-wing charters as the charter industry as a whole. Some of these schools have been established and run by Republican politicians, such as Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida and Heidi Ganahl of Colorado, with financial rewards in some situations. It calls into question whether anyone is actually keeping track of the boundaries between private enterprise and public education.
As this develops, it’s easy to characterize the charter movement as one thing or another, but that isn’t the case. It’s a coalition that has surreptitiously taken in billions of dollars from a select few extremely wealthy donors who have very different ideas about what American kids should learn. Data-driven reform is what Gates desires. The Waltons desire competition in the market. DeVos desires a mission that is more akin to a spiritual one. They have few things in common. Together, they have nevertheless succeeded in creating something truly remarkable. It’s still unclear if parents fully comprehend what they’re enrolling their kids in.
