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Originally Posted by SEC_Chick
Charter schools are very popular with Rs, and are generally vehemently opposed by Democrats and teacher's unions. Most every voucher program I can recall has been geared towards low-income communities with failing schools. Remind me who it was that wanted to withhold funding from the DC voucher program that significantly increased high school graduation rates?
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The opponents of charter school programs typically are Democrats, but that does not mean that Democrats oppose charter schools. Voucher programs are geared towards low-income schools because high-income schools use residential requirements to keep low-income kids out of their schools, and politicians like to keep their jobs and thus do not propose to give low-income kids the chance to go to schools in more affluent communities. Teachers unions oppose charter schools because the people who promote charter schools see them as an opportunity to take away the rights for which teachers have bargained. (I'm not defending the unions, just describing the dynamic.) Charters schools don't have to be designed in a way to take away those rights, so the facts that they are suggests that their advocates have an agenda that is more complex than simply improving education. Likewise, teachers unions have an agenda that seems to revolve more around protecting teachers than improving education.
I'm not sure what DC program you have in mind. I lived there during fights between Democratic administrators and Democratic teachers unions over all sorts of issues. Republicans weren't involved because there aren't many in DC, and those who are don't have kids in the public schools, either because they don't have kids or because they have the money for private schools.
