Expanding charter schools around the country is losing support among Americans, even as President Donald Trump and his administration continue to push for school choice, according to a survey released Tuesday.
Trump campaigned on a promise to dramatically improve school choice — charter schools and private school voucher programs — and his Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has made it a priority. But so far the message does not appear to have hit home with the public.
About 39 percent of respondents favor opening more charters — schools that are funded by public money, but usually operated independently of school districts — according to the survey by Education Next, a journal published by Harvard’s Kennedy School and Stanford University. That’s down from 51 percent last year.
Supporters of charter schools had feared that Trump’s polarizing rhetoric could hurt the school-choice movement.
But the authors of the report say the decline in
