Why it Matters

The Senate HELP Committee held a hearing on charter schools Wednesday, May 20 that put a sharp spotlight on one of the Trump administration's core education priorities, while Democrats used the session to raise alarms about the dismantling of federal oversight that protects students with disabilities. The administration strongly supports charter expansion, having proposed a $60 million budget increase for charter schools even as it cuts more than $4.5 billion from broader K-12 programs.

The Big Picture

The hearing, titled "Hearings To Examine Meeting The Individual Needs Of All Students, Focusing On The Role Of Charter Schools," was called by HELP Committee Chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) as part of a deliberate legislative runway for two bills he is advancing: the Equitable Access to School Facilities Act and the Empower Charter School Educators to Lead Act. Charter school enrollment has grown 370 percent since 2003, from 700,000 to more than 3.3 million students nationwide. The Trump administration has rolled back federal oversight of the Charter Schools Program and directed the Education Department to expand charter grants.

What They're Saying

The hearing's most pointed exchange came when Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) pressed Coco on the federal government's broken promise under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Congress committed in 1975 to cover up to 40 percent of the additional cost of educating students with disabilities. Coco testified that the current contribution sits at roughly 10 percent, one of the lowest levels ever. Kim responded that fully funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) would cost approximately $40 billion, then drew a pointed comparison: "Forty billion is about what we spent on the last couple weeks of the Iraq War."

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) delivered the sharpest critique of the administration, presenting data showing that in 2025, Virginians filed 570 cases with the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Of those, 130 involved students with disabilities. Only one was resolved. "The OCR is being dramatically shrunk," Kaine said, adding that the Trump administration had also scrapped research and data collection tracking how different student subgroups are performing. Coco confirmed the concern, saying the civil rights data collection "has not happened, it's behind schedule, and we're uncertain if it will be conducted."

Debbie Vaughn, Development Director at Lakes and Bridges Charter School, offered a personal account of what happens when traditional schools fail students with learning disabilities. Her daughter, diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia, was denied an Individualized Education Program by her public school. The child eventually developed generalized anxiety disorder and was having panic attacks in the classroom before Vaughn helped to found a charter school specifically for dyslexic students. Cassidy, pressing Vaughn on what she did when the school refused to act, got a blunt answer: "We started a charter school."

Political Stakes

The hearing lands as the Trump administration is simultaneously boosting charter funding and dismantling the federal infrastructure that oversees both charter and traditional public schools. That tension creates an opening for Democrats, who can support the concept of educational choice while attacking the administration's gutting of enforcement capacity. For Cassidy, the hearing advances two bills and burnishes his profile as an education reformer with bipartisan appeal. His Empower Charter School Educators to Lead Act has Democratic co-sponsors including Sens. Cory Booker and Michael Bennet. Ranking Member Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) did not attend, though his minority staff recently released a report framing charter expansion as a billionaire-driven effort to dismantle public education.

The most consequential data point of the session came from Coco, citing Stanford University's Credo study. For most student subgroups, charter schools showed greater academic gains than traditional public schools. The one exception: students with disabilities, who showed academic learning losses in charter schools. "It brings me no joy to say that," Coco said, "but it certainly drives the why of our work."

Yes, But

Coco was careful not to frame the problem as charter schools being unwilling to serve students with disabilities. She argued the real issue is structural: charters receive only 75 percent of the per-pupil funding of traditional public schools, lack the economies of scale to offer a full continuum of services, and struggle to compete for special education staff. "These are not arguments against charter schools," she said. "They're arguments for an ecosystem that we haven't yet designed." She called on Congress to fully fund IDEA, require charters to demonstrate proactive planning for students with disabilities, and preserve a functioning Department of Education to provide oversight and technical assistance to states.

Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), who passed the first freestanding charter school legislation in Ohio history, acknowledged the sector's uneven record. "Some of those charter schools did really well, and some of them didn't," he said, before pointing to the Dayton Early College Academy as a success story for students who previously had no good options.

What's Next

Questions for the record are due by 5 p.m. on Thursday, June 4. The Empower Charter School Educators to Lead Act and its House companion, H.R. 3453, remain active in the 119th Congress. A separate bill, the High-Quality Charter Schools Act (H.R. 2798), would establish a $5 billion annual tax credit volume cap for charter school financing beginning in calendar year 2026, creating urgency for action before the end of the year.

The Bottom Line

The hearing produced broad agreement that students with disabilities are being underserved across both school types, but deep disagreement about whether expanding charter schools, or preserving the federal oversight being dismantled by the Trump administration, is the more urgent fix.

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