{"id":1596630,"date":"2022-08-09T11:17:24","date_gmt":"2022-08-09T15:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1596630"},"modified":"2022-08-09T11:17:31","modified_gmt":"2022-08-09T15:17:31","slug":"michigan-charter-schools-sue-department-of-education-over-new-rule-that-threatens-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/michigan-charter-schools-sue-department-of-education-over-new-rule-that-threatens-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan Charter Schools Sue Department of Education Over New Rule That Threatens Them"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmichigan-charter-schools-sue-department-of-education-over-new-rule-that-threatens-them%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1596630&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>An organization representing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-michigan\">Michigan<\/a> charter schools is suing the U.S. Department of Education over a new rule that its lawyers say will undermine charter schools.<\/p>\n<p>The Biden administration, which is closely aligned with public school teachers unions, is hostile to charter schools. On the campaign trail in 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden said he\u2019s \u201cnot a fan of charter schools.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The legal complaint (<a href=\"https:\/\/pacificlegal.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Michigan-Assoc.-of-Public-School-Academies-2022.08.08-PLF-Complaint.pdf\">pdf<\/a>) in the case, Michigan Association of Public School Academies (MAPSA) v. U.S. Department of Education, court file 1:22-cv-00712, was filed on Aug. 8 with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is also listed as a plaintiff.<\/p>\n<p>Despite Biden\u2019s disapproval of charter schools, the administration can\u2019t ignore the wishes of Congress, which favors charter schools and has voted to send grants their way, Caleb Kruckenberg, of national nonprofit public interest law firm the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-pacific-legal-foundation\">Pacific Legal Foundation<\/a>, told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>Congress allots hundreds of millions of dollars each year for charter school programs nationwide. Specifically, on March 10, Congress appropriated $440 million for the federal charter school program for 2023. The program was signed into law in 1994 by President Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n<p>Federal law requires the Department of Education to dispense federal grants to charter management organizations and state entities in order to \u201cincrease the number of high-quality charter schools available to students across the United States,\u201d Kruckenberg wrote in an April 11 letter (<a href=\"https:\/\/pacificlegal.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/2022.04.11-PLF-Comment-Letter-Dept-of-Education-1.pdf\">pdf<\/a>) to the department.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt cannot refuse because it disfavors giving parents and students choice in which school to attend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the Department of Education is undermining the law with a new administrative rule that was published in the Federal Register on July 6. The rule establishes new criteria for grants that are designed to hurt charter school programs and protect failing public schools from innovative alternatives. The department doesn\u2019t have the authority to issue new criteria, and the person who issued it lacks the legal authority to do so, the complaint states.<\/p>\n<p>There are \u201cthree very problematic parts of it,\u201d Kruckenberg told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the new requirements of the rule is that an applicant has to demonstrate that a new charter school is needed. But the way they\u2019re supposed to do that is they have to show that the existing public schools are overcrowded,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, the applicant has to show that \u201cthe existing public school will cooperate with a new charter school.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe problem is, that\u2019s not how charter schools work. They work as an alternative to schools that aren\u2019t doing what they\u2019re supposed to,\u201d Kruckenberg said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd a lot of times, if you look at the best schools, it\u2019s school districts where there\u2019s lots of space, but it\u2019s because the schools are failing\u2014they\u2019re not doing what they should. And there\u2019s a lot of resistance from local school districts. And so these criteria can be used to disadvantage, for example, schools that operate in urban areas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also \u201ca really problematic racial balancing component to the new rule,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Under the new rule, \u201cthe new charter school project can\u2019t racially isolate or segregate students either in the charter school or in the public schools that they\u2019re getting their students from,\u201d according to Kruckenberg.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is that the department \u201cdefines racial isolation as there\u2019s too many students of one ethnic group.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo you can think of certain charter schools that serve predominantly inner-city areas, and you can see how they get in trouble,\u201d he said. \u201cSome of our clients, for instance, they have student bodies that are made up of, say, 90 or 95 percent African American students.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And according to the department, \u201cthat means they\u2019re racially isolated students,\u201d Kruckenberg said.<\/p>\n<p>Nina Rees, president of the National Alliance for Public <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-charter-schools\">Charter Schools<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chalkbeat.org\/2022\/6\/7\/23158800\/biden-charter-school-rules-education-roberto-rodriguez\">told<\/a> trade publication Chalkbeat in June that the new rule would protect government schools while hurting charter schools.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe underlying premise of this argument is that it is more acceptable to provide a substandard education and remain open, as is the case for too many low-performing district schools,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The Epoch Times reached out to the Department of Education for comment. Although press officer Julie Ewart said by email that the department was working on a response, no comment had been received by press time.<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-matthew-vadum\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"names\">\n<p>contributor<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative journalist and a recognized expert in left-wing activism.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An organization representing Michigan charter schools is suing the U.S. Department of Education over a new rule that its lawyers say will undermine charter schools.The Biden administration, which is closely<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1596630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1596630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1596630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1596630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1596630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}