Seven Rules for Charter School Radicals

We Americans can, if we choose, have schools that educate rather than warehouse, schools that teach patriotism and piety rather than hate for America and gender ideology. The road will not be easy and it will not be cheap, but our educational failures are not cheap either. For 2023–2024, Baltimore City Public Schools budgeted $22,424 per student, while English proficiency at grade level for 2023 ranged from 31.2% to 19.1%, and math proficiency from 16.7% to 3% (not a typo!). Here are seven rules to guide us along that harder but better path:

1. We need public standards for education and public funding for education, but we do not need much public education. While there is room for schools that teach a state-determined or otherwise governmentally determined curriculum, generally speaking, almost all schools should have the autonomy to choose their own textbooks, teaching materials, and teaching staff in their drive to meet the learning standards the public requires.

2. Schools should compete for funding by competing for students. The primary role of governments is to fund schools through taxes distributed to schools on the basis of enrollment and shut down fraudulent or failing schools.

3. Every jurisdiction should foster competition between schools for students. Jurisdictions rife with educational failure that, because of teacher union power and parent indifference, are hostile to competition should be compelled by their states—and as a last resort by the federal government—to adopt the policies of those jurisdictions most successful at fostering good schools through competition.

4. We should not be afraid of failure; we should be appalled by our own indifference to failure. Principals whose schools thrive should expect to make salaries that reflect their success, and principals who don’t attract students or don’t create environments where the students actually learn should expect to have to find alternative careers. The difference between a facilitator of learning and a manager of babysitting is worth more (and probably far more) than $1,000 a student. Where in America does the principal of a 400-student, publicly funded school make $400,000 a year?

5. We cannot keep schools from failing, but we can make sure that no children are failed by their schools. Every child deserves to be educated with love and hope for their future, but we need to face the reality that not all children thrive in a conventional classroom. Students who disrupt the learning of others will have to be taken out of class and taught in an environment where they will learn without disruption to themselves or others. This is, of course, expensive, but it is a bargain compared to the expense and waste of trying to remediate the disruption that results from trying to keep a kid in a conventional class who is failing there and causing others to fail.

6. No school should be barred from public funding on grounds of its religious affiliation or the religious content of its instruction. Freedom of religion means the freedom of moms and dads to seek to bring up their children in the faith of their fathers and mothers. It is an egregious violation of equal protection of the laws if that basic right is denied to some families because they cannot afford to pay private school tuition while their taxes go to schools that exclude or even demean their faith.

7. It is the obligation of the public to ensure that all schools—whatever their funding model and whatever their religious affiliation or lack thereof—teach a common faith in our country and a common morality. Our children, long after we are gone, will share this country with our neighbor’s children, and so we need today to ensure that all children are brought up with the virtues they need for a common life.