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Correction appended January 17

Public charter schools may have lost some of the luster they enjoyed with centrist Democrats in Washington, D.C., a decade or two ago, but a top Biden administration education official this week sought to reassure the sector that it enjoys broad support on both sides of the aisle.

鈥淚 do not believe that the bottom has fallen out from under the bipartisan coalition for public charter schools,鈥� said Roberto Rodriguez, assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy development at the U.S. Department of Education. 鈥淚 think if that were the case, you would see the funding completely deteriorating from this program. And in fact, you’re not seeing that.鈥�

The Biden administration has faced harsh criticism for its stance on its $440 million , a key federal grant that more than half of charter schools rely upon. This comes as centrist Democrats, once the sector鈥檚 biggest backers, have sought political support from teachers鈥� unions, which for decades have forcefully opposed charters.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden admitted, 鈥淚鈥檓 not a charter school fan.鈥�

But on Wednesday during a panel discussion at Washington, D.C.鈥檚 Brookings Institution, Rodriguez adopted a softer posture.

鈥淲e support high-quality public schools for all kids, including high-quality public charter schools,鈥� he told Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Doug Harris, the panel鈥檚 moderator. 鈥淥ur budget stands behind that. The work we’re doing stands behind that. The rulemaking that we’ve proposed is not an effort to tear down the charter school sector. In fact, it is an effort to further promote that objective.鈥�

But the administration has warned that more than one in seven charter schools funded by the grant either never opened or shut down before their grant period ended, in effect wasting an in taxpayer funding. In response, last year it proposed new regulations that critics said amounted to a new 鈥渨ar鈥� on charter schools.

The originally proposed rule for applicants required them to prove their schools met 鈥渦nmet demand鈥� in existing public schools 鈥� a requirement that charter advocates said ignored a bigger problem in district schools: poor quality.

The department also said applicants had to collaborate with 鈥渁t least one traditional public school or traditional school district,鈥� in effect giving districts a veto over their plans, according to charter advocates.

A third requirement said charter schools had to show they wouldn鈥檛 worsen district desegregation efforts or increase racial or socio-economic segregation or isolation in schools.

Taken together, , the draft requirements were 鈥渢ailor-made to ensure that the most successful charter schools won鈥檛 be replicated or expanded.鈥�

The education department received 26,550 comments on the proposed regulations, andangry charter school parents the White House in May to protest Biden鈥檚 stance on funding regulations.

eventually admitted that the final rules, issued in August, were less harmful but 鈥渘ot without impact鈥� on future growth of the sector. Among the concerns: a shortened window for submitting applications.

Two groups , saying, among other things, that the department lacked authority to impose new criteria on the grants, which Congress approved as part of a massive spending bill in December. It level-funded the charter grant for the . 

Harris, who has long studied the sector, noted that recent campaign rhetoric 鈥渉as been different from what the actions have been in the administration,鈥� with more public-facing skepticism from lawmakers about charters than 鈥渨hat’s happening in the nuts and bolts of committee rooms.鈥� He asked the panel if they see the coalition for charters 鈥渇racturing鈥� on the ground, especially among centrist Democrats.

Shavar Jeffries, CEO of the KIPP Foundation, which trains educators for the network鈥檚 280 schools, observed that even in the movement鈥檚 鈥渉alcyon heydays,鈥� charters were simultaneously 鈥渃ontentious among a variety of different constituencies鈥� and the beneficiaries of significant bipartisan support. That continues today, he said.

鈥淚 do think there’s a kind of false idea [that] people are moving away from the issue in ways that [are] maybe inconsistent with what we’ve seen in the past,鈥� he said.

But Jeffries said opponents of the Biden regulations had a point about not wanting to collaborate with districts, since some district officials are 鈥渘ot interested in the practices we’re trying to share.鈥� He added, 鈥淵ou can take a horse to water, but you can’t take it much further than that [if] people aren’t interested.鈥�

In a few instances, Jeffries said, opponents 鈥渁re actually acting aggressively to undermine the capacity for public charter schools to exist.鈥� He recalled local superintendents who were not only opposed to KIPP practices, but 鈥渟adly, in some instances鈥�didn’t even want us to be here. So the idea that we’re going to obtain their support is obviously not going to happen.鈥�

He also said the requirement that charter schools not worsen segregation can, in some cases, amount to a requirement that schools serving Black and Latino students essentially find white students in the suburbs.

Charter schools serve more than 3 million students, recent research shows, about two-thirds of them Black or Hispanic and most low-income. 

The Brookings panel also included from another panelist, Katrina Bulkley of Montclair State University, who led a team that found charter school authorizers are a key but little-studied aspect of the charter school world.

While some authorizers say equity is key to their mission, they found, others focus on choice or 鈥渕arket logic.鈥� And they found that authorizers that prioritized equity received applications from schools that also prioritized equity. 鈥淭his really suggests to us that those beliefs and the practices of authorizers are shaping what applicants are submitting,鈥� Bulkley said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story contained an incorrect funding amount for the federal Charter Schools Program.

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