Prairie State Wire

About 78 percent of parents support the launching of charter public schools in their neighborhood, according to a new study but presidential candidate Joe Biden has vowed to close them all if he is elected, according to a tweet on Twitter. 

“If you don't have school competition and school choice, then the education system will stall and students will not get as good of an education as they're currently getting and there won't be much real progress going into the future," said David Krupa, 13th ward Republican committeeman.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools found that 73 percent support more charter schools opening nationwide but Biden said on MSNBC, "If I'm president, [Education Secretary] Betsy DeVos’ whole notion from charter schools to this are gone,” according to a May 24 tweet by Corey A. DeAngelis, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom and director of school choice at the Reason Foundation.

“It's a deeply disturbing statement because I'm all about school choice,” Krupa told the Prairie State Wire. “That's scary to say the least. It's not the president's prerogative whether there are charter schools or not.”

DeVos has said charter schools are a solution to an education that is "a closed system, a closed industry, a closed market,” according to media reports.

“It would be disastrous for the educational system as a whole if some of our schools were to close, especially a whole bunch of them like every charter school in the country,” Krupa said in an interview. “That'd be terrible.” 

People who oppose charter schools are typically under the impression that they take away resources from public schools, according to Krupa. 

“That’s a fair argument,” he said. “Charter schools implement different strategies on how to use those resources and they can learn from one another. People can decide whether or not they want to go with the public school system, which uses the resources one way, or the charter school system, which uses resources another way. People may have different opinions on what they think is important. One of the best services charter schools provide is healthy competition and a different way to educate.”