Obama’s IRS to Target Charter Schools?

The last two weeks have been filled with stories of the Obama administration’s attack on religious organizations by forcing them to perform and/or pay for activities that are in direct opposition to their core beliefs. Now, it appears that the Obama administration is  targeting charter schools.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is challenging whether charter school teachers (typically non-unionized and unaffiliated with the NEA) should be eligible for state retirement plans – the same plans they have been contributing to for years.

Charter schools are public schools, but they work outside the typical NEA and union framework. They do receive taxpayer money, but there are some differences that the IRS is targeting. If the IRS is successful, it could force teachers into lower-performing traditional public schools over the new-era charter platform.

The Washintgon Times reported:

The proposed change would establish five criteria for determining eligibility in state retirement plans, the most troublesome of which, from the point of view of whether charter school teachers could participate, is a provision stating that “the governing officers either are appointed by state officials or publicly elected.” Another condition is that a government body must be responsible for all the debt a participating institution accumulates.

First, having a government official responsible for debt is the worst possible scenario an American tax payer can imagine. The inability of centralized government to manage tax payer funds has been documented over… and over… and over .. and.. well you get the point.

Second, the Internal Revenue Service is under President Obama by way of the department of the Treasury run by Mr. Timothy Geithner – yeah.. that guy. Geithner has been recently concerned over whether or not he would have a job should Barack Obama get re-elected and suddenly .. a new ruling more in-line with teacher’s unions than with the desires of American families.

Charter schools are steadily proving more effective than traditional schools by a wide margin. So much so that parents are having to put their kids into lotteries to hopefully gain entrance into the better schools.

Charter schools concentrate their funds on education. Some don’t offer bus service or spend money on extravagances such as cafeterias or theaters and the staff that must work those areas. That means more money for teachers and more time in the classroom.

The NEA is firmly against charter schools as are public sector unions. Both serve as special interest groups and lobby the administration – it would appear that special interests are more important than the will of the individual and  families – much like Obama’s recent oppressive attack on religious organizations in his attempt to get free contraception for all.

Charter schools are a mixed government and free-market alternative. They consistently out-perform full-public managed institutions and the big-government education groups are working to destroy them. Parents that have used them must organize against this overstep of government and special interest in order to preserve better choices for their children’s education.