Sanders set to become first 2020 candidate to call for ban on for-profit charter schools

Presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Saturday will call to ban for-profit charter schools in an education policy speech. 

Sanders will also endorse the NAACP’s moratorium on public funds for charter school expansion until they are audited at the national level and will support halting the use of public funds to underwrite new charter schools, Sanders’ campaign told told The Hill in a statement. 

{mosads}The senator also aims to hold existing charters accountable by giving them the same oversight requirements as public schools, requiring teachers and parents to make up half of charter school boards, mandating financial interest disclosures and other measures. 

Sanders’s plan, which was first reported by CNN, will be called the “Thurgood Marshall Plan For Public Education and Educators.”

Sanders will unveil the proposal in a South Carolina speech, CNN reported Friday, and will make the case that black people are disproportionately hurt by charter schools because they take money away from public schools. 

His speech will be delivered around the anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which launched the desegregation public schools. According to CNN, he will be the first 2020 candidate to endorse a ban on for-profit charter schools.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has endorsed supporting public schools instead of charters. The Trump administration, meanwhile has promoted charter schools. 

Sanders and Warren are among two dozen people vying for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination.