Michigan state school board wants to suffocate charter schools

The Michigan State Board of Education has passed a resolution advocating for anti-charter reforms.

The MSBE announced Wednesday it passed a resolution calling on the state Legislature to impose further regulations on charter schools under the pretext of transparency.

“Charter schools are technically public schools, so they should be expected to follow the same regulations regarding transparency as all public schools are required to follow,” board member Mitchell Robinson said in a press release.

Robinson had previously called for an end to charter schools, comparing them to private prisons. 

While charter schools are publicly funded and tuition-free, they do have freedoms – unlike traditional public schools – to have specialized curriculum, an independent school board and other tailored policies and practices.  

The model is effective in Michigan, where a recent study showed charter school students outperformed their peers in reading and math.  

The study’s results are echoed nationwide and, notably, among minority students.  

Moreover, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Michigan charter enrollment grew by 2% between 2019 and 2022, while public schools declined by almost 5%. 

Yet, the MSBE resolution would force charter schools to more closely resemble their traditional – and less successful– public school counterparts.  

“Our public schools are a vital part of our local communities,” board President Pamela Pugh says in the same press release. “They should be governed by the people and not by outside groups that too often don’t support open government.  

“Michigan spends more than a billion dollars annually on charter schools. Taxpayers must know how these dollars are being spent.”  

For comparison, the state’s overall education budget is more than $24 billion.  

But education groups and school choice advocates are crying foul over the state board’s recommendations. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy criticized the board for trying to give itself more control over charter schools.  

“The State Board of Education in Michigan should not stand in the way of education options parents are desperately seeking,” said Molly Macek, director of education policy at Mackinac. “Allowing local public schools to have input on whether a charter school can be allowed to open is like giving Kroger the ability to decide whether a Meijer can open nearby. Of course, they will always oppose it. That’s not what is good for students and families.” 

Mackinac also accused the board of using transparency as a “red herring,” since charter schools are already subject to the same transparency laws as traditional public schools. 

This isn’t the first time Michigan has sought to hinder education freedom. Recent laws have given teachers’ unions more power over education and could even make kindergarten mandatory for all 5-year-olds, raising serious concerns for parental rights.