THE

EDUCATION NATION
ALL ABOUT U.S EDUCATION NATE LINDER & ALLISON POLAND

CHARTER VS. PUBLIC SCHOOLS

SCHOOL FUNDING
Charter schools are a controversial
topic in the debate for school
equity in funding. A charter school
is an independent school run by
organizations unaffiliated with the
government. They are funded
publicly but operate without direct
management from the district
school boards ("School Funding.").

Charter schools are generally

formed to help students with
special needs or those who have a
specific religious or cultural belief
that isn’t protected or supported
by the general public school system
("School Funding.”).

Charter and public schools are

similar as they’re both free, they
can’t discriminate against the
students enrolled, and they both
receive funding from the state.
Image of the public school Central York High School from the Central
They differ as the funding for
York school district.
charter schools is done on a fixed,
per-pupil basis whereas public
schools usually get their funding Because charter schools and public schools compete for government
from taxpayer money, and unlike funding, there is a large debate over the existence of charter schools and
public schools, the teachers for equity for school funding. For-profit organizations can create for-profit
charter schools usually don’t need charter schools and there is some criticism on the turning of education
any certifications, but this varies into a business venture (Caffee).
by state (Caffee).

PA CHARTER SCHOOLS FACT

According to the charter school advocacy group, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools,
in 2015-2016 there was an estimated 175 total charter schools in Pennsylvania.

1
 POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES

ARNE DUNCAN
Arne Duncan was appointed by former
President Barack Obama to be the U.S. secretary of
education on January 20th, 2009. He started his
educational career in Chicago, where he went from
serving as a tutor and mentor for low-income families
in his mother’s after school student help program to
becoming the head of the city's vast public school
system (Wong 2018).

When appointed as the secretary of education,

he held the perspective that the best way to reform
education was to look at data and statistics, a
viewpoint developed through the research he
performed throughout his career that caused him to
support further expansion of standardized testing and
common core programs, as well as additional funding
for charter schools (Bacon 2016).
Some of his ideas, such as the Freshman On-
Track Initiative, received praise for using research and
data to help to bring up school attendance and reduce
student dropouts (Wong 2018). However, many other
policies supported by Duncan received criticism from
both liberal and conservative figures for dehumanizing
the education reform process in favor of statistics that
can’t always tell the full story. Many of his ideas, such
as basing teacher pay on test scoring, earned him
heavily criticism, as well as calls to step down by the
NEA union (National Education Association) and many
other political figures (Bacon 2016). 

One of his most controversial and lasting

When asked about his opinion on data

 dehumanizing the education reform process, Duncan
defended his perspective, saying that he thinks “data
can do the opposite of dehumanizing.”(Wong 2018) His
experiences tutoring low-income students in Chicago
also gave him insight into how the public school
system has failed many low-income families,
especially those who live in cities like Chicago. Despite
his opinion that “education should be the ultimate
equalizer,” he finds that far too often public schools
fail the students who attend them and that “education
is built on lies.” (Wong 2018).
actions as the secretary of education was his advocacy
for opening independent charter schools across the
country, in addition to funding them with tax dollars
that would otherwise go to public schools. He backed
up his support for charter schools with data showing
that charter schools provide higher quality education
for low-income and minority students, even though this
data was sometimes manipulated by special interests
(Bryant 2015). Up throughout the end of his career,
Duncan supported the spread of charter schools
throughout the country not only because he believed in
the data showing that they were the most effective use
of taxpayer money, but also because he believed that
charter schools could benefit students living in areas
where the public school system had failed, such as his
home city of Chicago (Bacon 2016).

By the time he stepped down in 2015, Duncan’s firm belief in using

statistics to write educational policy had caused him to become one of the most
controversial figures of the Obama Presidency, and although his policies weren’t
widely agreed upon, his use of data in policymaking caused him to be one of the
most efficient and productive secretaries of education in U.S. history. In
Obama’s farewell speech to Duncan, he stated that “Had he not been, I believe,
as tenacious as he was, I think we would not have as good of a product as we do
here today, and so I could not be prouder of Arne Duncan.” (Bacon 2016).

2


POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES

BETSY DEVOS
Betsy Devos was appointed by President Donald Trump to serve
as the 11th U.S. Secretary of Education. She was confirmed by the
Senate on February 7th, 2017 and remains in her position to this day
(U.S. Dept. of Education 2019). Before being appointed to this position,
Betsy Devos was a strong advocate for private schools and charter
schools. She used her family’s large fortune to transition public schools
into private schools and is “one of the architects of Detroit's charter
school system,” (Education Votes 2019). In the public sector of
education, Betsy Devos is criticised as having no experience. She has
never worked at a public school, never served on a public board of
education, and neither she nor her children have ever attended a public
school (Education Votes 2019).

Since 2017, Betsy Devos has made it clear that she is a firm advocate for school choice. Similarly to the
president, Devos holds the perspective that the free market is the most efficient system, and she agrees with
Trump's opinion that public schools are “a government-run monopoly,” (Weller 2017). Betsy Devos believes that a
student’s zip code shouldn’t determine the quality of education that they receive, and believes that public
education isn’t always the best option for a student’s learning experience. Devos says that her experience
tutoring at-risk children who attend the Grand Rapids public school in Michigan “changed my life and my
perspective about education forever,” (U.S. Dept. of Education 2019).

Following her appointment as the U.S.

Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos has used her
position to further advocate for the expansion of
charter schools across the U.S. During a hearing in front
of congress, Devos stated, “Charter schools are great
options for thousands of students, and the demand for
more of them remains very high. We need more of
them, not fewer,” (Richards 2019). Under Devos,
charter schools grants and vouchers have continued
similarly to under her predecessor Arne Duncan, in the
2018-2019 school year, Devos authorized millions of
dollars in voucher funding for U.S. charter schools
(Public Schools First 2019).

Throughout the almost three years Devos has

been the Secretary of Education she has expanded upon
the charter school program brought forth by Arne
Duncan. However, as of the Trump presidency, charter
schools have received newly renewed, stronger
pushback from teacher unions and many Democrat
politicians alike. Nevertheless, Devos’s perspective that
the free market is the best system, and that
government-run public schools form an unhealthy
monopoly, lead her to continue expanding school choice
programs across the country.

3


POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES

THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION (NEA)

The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union
in the United States, and represents nearly three million teachers, school
faculty, and college students preparing for a teaching career across the U.S.
They were founded in 1857 in order to give educators a path to collective
bargaining and to advance the interests of the teaching profession. As a
union, the NEA’s core values are equal opportunity, a just society, and
democracy, values which lead them to fight for a student’s right to receive
good, well funded public education regardless of where in the U.S. they live
(NEA 2019).

Since the NEA was founded, they have fought for issues such as safer
schools for students and teachers, affordable health care for school
employees, and nutritious school lunches for students (NEA 2019). However,
one issue that has recently gained attention among the NEA’s platform is
charter schools and charter school funding. As the public schools that NEA
employees work in suffer from being neglected and underfunded, independent charter schools receive millions of
dollars in government funding that they are then able to spend with minimal oversight or supervision (U.S. Dept.
of Education 2017).

Because the NEA consists of many former and current public school teachers, members of the Union argue
that underfunding caused by charter school vouchers can do massive damage to the state-run education system.
They also emphasize the importance of government oversight in the school system in order to make sure that
teachers have the proper qualifications and that curriculums are in place to ensure students learn the skills that
they will need as an adult. NEA leadership frequently points out studies showing the negative discrepancies
between public schools and charter schools in subjects such as math and English. 37% of charter schools report
math assessment scores “significantly worse” than their public school counterparts, while only 17% of charter
schools report performing better than public schools (Stanford 2019). 

However, while they do believe in having a stronger government oversight and not cutting public school
funding for charters, the NEA doesn’t advocate for the complete abolition of charter schools. They believe that
charters can be a valuable place for teaching experimentation and innovation. If the government were to take
action to prevent charter schools being run for profit, and were to require that charter school teachers have the
same certifications as public school teachers, the NEA would support charter schools in what their original goal
was to be “to empower small groups of educators to launch a wide variety of innovative start-ups that, by
experimenting with new approaches to education, would develop superior models fit to meet the needs of the
diverse students that make up the state’s school population.” (NEA 2019). 

4


TEACHER PERSPECTIVES

MR. WIMMER | PERSPECTIVE ANALYSIS

On Tuesday, October 8th, we met with Mr. Wimmer to ask him several questions regarding charter
schools. About the effectivity of the curriculum provided by the state in comparison to the less restrictive
curriculum provided by charter schools, Mr. Wimmer said that he believed the goal of standards is to provide an
equal playing field for all of the schools in the state. However, he also said that the state can go wrong by
providing and requiring too many standards; that the state continually adds more standards and more rigorous
ones which causes a situation where teachers don’t have enough time to teach all the standards reasonably.

On charter schools, Mr. Wimmer said that
it’s nice that they have the flexibility to specialize
the standards that can be taught more thoroughly,
but some charter schools lack the oversight needed
for a good specialized curriculum. Mr. Wimmer has
experience with the state's education standards
through teaching in the public school system along
with teaching in the project-based program,
Apollo, which allows students to pick and choose
their own standards. This gives him a unique
perspective since he knows about teaching students
with a more restricted set of standards and
teaching students with a less restricted set of
standards that students were able to choose for
themselves.
When asked about charter schools receiving
government funding, Mr. Wimmer stated that of the
two kinds of charter schools, for-profit and
nonprofit, nonprofits generally do a better job of
cooperating with the federal government and many
non-profit charter schools do a phenomenal job
servicing students. He said that many for-profit
charters shouldn’t receive funding that pulls away
from public education.
In response to whether or not teachers in
charter schools should have the same credentials as
those in public schools, Mr. Wimmer responded with
yes, but he said he also worries that there is going
to be a teacher shortage in the future. Mr. Wimmer
said that although he believes public schools and
charter school teachers should be required to have
the same credentials, the question “should schools
accept lacking applicants in the case of a teacher
shortage?” is much harder to answer.
On whether or not the government should enforce
more oversight on charter schools, Mr. Wimmer said
he is unsure of the government’s exact oversight
currently enforced when it comes to budgetary
review and the department of education. He also
said that it was a difficult question because when
teachers are working with students, some oversight
should be honored in order to ensure that students
are receiving a quality education. But on the other
hand, too much oversight on teachers can be a bad
thing.

Mr. Wimmer praised charter schools in York such as

Lincoln Charter as being great examples of charter
schools that provide students with quality
education, but he also believes that many charter
schools throughout the U.S. put profits ahead of
education.

5


TEACHER PERSPECTIVES

MR. BAILEY | PERSPECTIVE ANALYSIS

Along with Mr. Wimmer, we also asked
several questions to Mr. Bailey, who is currently a
private school teacher at The Bullis School. Mr.
Bailey has a large amount of teaching experience
and has worked in public schools such as Central
York High School along with private schools. His
experiences mean that he has worked in
environments with low and high amounts of
government involvement, which gives him an
interesting perspective when discussing charter
schools.
When asked about curriculum difference
between charter and public schools, Mr. Bailey
stated that both the more controlled curriculum of
public education and the more open curriculum of
charter education both can be effective for students
and that most of it depends on the teachers
teaching it. Although Mr. Bailey has had great
success teaching flexible curriculums such as Honors
English 3, he has the experience to know that a
curriculum like that won’t work for every teacher.
Mr. Bailey takes the stance that as charter
schools are public, they should receive government
funding, especially in states with a stronger local
government like PA. He references that PA has
created several education student rights such as
books or bus transportation which cannot be taken
away without substantive due process.
In response to being asked if charter school
teachers should be required to show the same
credentials as those in public schools, Mr. Bailey
believes that not requiring teacher credentials is one
of the advantages charter schools hold. This is
because his experience trying to find a job under PA’s
teaching credentials system leads him to question the
effectiveness of the system. When Mr. Bailey moved
to Pennsylvania, he had difficulty finding a teaching
job despite having prior experience at a private
school with national recognition. Mr. Bailey believes
that this is because PA teaching credentials are
designed to protect state college graduates and
ensure that they find a job first, even over teachers
who may be more qualified. Mr. Bailey stated that 
“Many times PA loses out on great teachers because
of the red tape,” and thinks that because charter
schools aren’t forced to use the same credentials,
they are able to find applicants that public schools
pass over. 
He responded to the question of whether or
not charter schools should receive more oversight by
saying, “The main problem with Charter schools is
they often lose sight of or lack a vision and do not
stay true to their mission if they have one at all.
Those that do, like High Tech High in LA are lighting
the world of education on fire and have many in
public education petrified of the progress they make
daily.” In terms of fiscal responsibility, he believes
that all public institutions should have to create a
clear item budget. An example he provides of a
public school without a clear item budget is the York
City Schools when they lost accountability block
funding because they bought over $500k in erasers
and school supplies.

Although it is easy to give a blanket statement about whether or not private schools should be supported or
stripped of funding, our discussions with the teachers who have experience with the system show that there are
many pros and cons to charter schools and public schools and that both types of systems should be supported and
improved where possible.
Mr. Wimmers’ perspective as an Apollo teacher allows him to see the potential benefits of a flexible
charter curriculum, and Mr. Bailey’s work in private schools allow him to experience working with great teachers
who might have been passed over by public school credential standards. Both of their experiences in public schools
allow them to see the importance of making sure every student receives an education that sets them up for
success as well. Many teachers have a unique and one-of-a-kind experience on education that allows them to
contribute a unique perspective to the public vs. charter schools debate, and their opinions show that there is no
one answer to whether or not charter schools are doing a good job educating students.

6


POLITICAL CARTOONS

PRO CHARTER SCHOOLS PRO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Nate Beeler's political cartoon depicts an angry lady
with a large axe labeled as “Teacher Unions”
preparing to cut down a tree titled “Charter Unions.”
The lady is pointing at the withered apples on the
ground and exclaims, “I see some bad apples!!! Time
to cut the tree down!” The donkey on the other side
of the tree has a chainsaw and represents the
Democrats.
The statement being made by this piece is that the
teacher unions, and Democrats, are looking at issues
that affect a minor portion of the charter schools,
and are deciding to remove charter schools as an
entirety because of those said issues.
The artist’s depiction of the charter schools as a tree
that looks healthy with lots of leaves and apples takes
the perspective that charter schools are good and are
a form of education that can “bear fruit.” The
teacher unions and Democrats are depicted as if they
are taking things out of proportion and aren’t looking
at the bigger picture. The piece also makes use of the
analogy: “one bad apple can spoil the bunch.”
This cartoon by Pat Bagley from the Salt Lake
Tribune, depicts two different scenes, one for
public schools and the other for charter schools. In
the scene depicting public schools, the kid is giving
a full apple to the teacher. In the scene, depicting
charter schools, the kid was going to give the
apple to the teacher, but someone representing
for-profit corporations took it from the kid, and
took a bite of the apple before offering it to the
teacher.
The statement being made by this cartoon is that
charter schools put in a third party group between
the students and teachers in the schools, and that
third party group is harmful to both sides.
In the first scene depicting public schools, the kid
and the teacher have a connection through the
passage of the apple, but in the scene depicting
charter schools, they are separated by the man
depicting the for-profit corporations.

OUR CARTOON
Our original cartoon makes a pro-charter school
argument from the perspective of school choice.
Although the ice cream shop, which represents the
charter school sector, has a wide variety of flavors
and selections, union forces such as “Loony Lily”
want to force all students into one mediocre
choice. In this cartoon, Lily shut down the shop
with help from the government and is only offering
students one option, public schools.

7
ONLINE POLL ANALYSIS
This analysis covers a poll by Education Next which was aimed at the support of charter schools among members of
the Democratic party by race.

In 2016, Hispanic Democrats

showed the most support for
charter schools with an average
of about 47% closely followed by
Black Democrats with an
average of about 45% then
followed by White Democrats
averaging about 43% support.
The 2016 poll results had the
most similar results with no
outliers.

In 2017, the poll showed a

decrease in support of charter
schools with an average of 39%
of Hispanic Democrats showing
support for charter schools and
an average of 37% of Black
Democrats showing support. The
average of the White Democrats
dropped the most to 29%
showing support for charter
schools. The White Democrats
were an outlier for the 2017 poll
results showing less average
support for charter schools than
the Black or Hispanic
Democrats.

For 2018, the support for charter

schools increased in Black and Hispanic Democrats and decreased for White Democrats. The average percentage of
support for both Black Democrats and Hispanic Democrats was the same at 47%. The average support of the White
Democrats dropped to 27%. The poll results for 2018 had the biggest outlier with White Democrats showing an
average of 20% less support for charter schools than both the Black and Hispanic Democrats.

The Black and Hispanic Democrats in the poll average a similar percentage of support for charter schools each year
with both being higher than the average support from the White Democrats.

Because of the discrimination and marginalization that minority groups have faced historically, those populations
generally have a lower socioeconomic status and as a result, are more likely to live in poorer areas of the U.S. Since
public schools in the U.S are usually funded by the local government, in low-income areas, public schools don’t
receive the proper funding and usually aren’t as high quality as their counterparts from more well-funded areas.
Charter schools become an option for those in low-income areas, as charter schools are generally funded by the
federal government on a fixed per-pupil basis, and could provide a more well-funded and higher quality education
than from the public school in their local area (“Ethnic and Racial Minorities & Socioeconomic Status.”).

Throughout all three years that this poll was conducted, support for charter schools was below 50% for all groups.
This is because most members of the Democrat party do not trust private groups and companies to put humans above
profits. From a Democrat’s perspective, many industries such as the pharmaceutical industry and the energy industry
have failed the American people by putting profits above broader ideas for the common good of the public, such as
preventing global warming and making medicine such as insulin affordable (OnTheIssues, 2019). Many Democrats see
the damage privatized industries have done to the country and don’t trust organizations running charters to be any
different.

The Democratic party is also generally pro-union, meaning that lower percentages of union membership in charter
schools are a hurting point for charters looking for Democrat support.