Even though Colorado is ostensibly a “blue” state, many supporters of the Colorado charter school industry are solidly on board with President Donald Trump’s agenda for public education. Trump is aligned with the billionaire oligarchy and Colorado’s charter school growth has been funded by billionaires and corporate interests. The state’s charter school expansion is also fueled by ideological goals from arch-conservative groups closely allied with the Trump administration.

November 21, 2024, a Denver Public Schools board member described how “oligarchs created the conditions to expand charter schools in Black and Latino communities across Denver,” where almost one-fourth of the district’s’ students now attend charter schools. Thanks to the monetary influence of these billionaires in local and state elections, Colorado has one of the nation’s most favorable charter school laws and the second highest percentage of students in charter schools. 

Trump’s federal education budget to expand charter schools is being increased by $60 million to a record half a billion dollars. Trump’s executive order on school choice drew high praise from national pro-charter leaders like Fred Hess and Darryl Bradford, whose 50 CAN organization sponsors Denver’s Transform Education Now, an organization that backed the expansion of Colorado charter schools for decades. A recent proposal by Gov. Jared Polis and state Senate President James Coleman to increase more charter schools is also in accordance with this Trump priority.

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Linda McMahon, Trump’s billionaire secretary of education, is promoting new conservative priorities on how schools deliver their education, and these goals are in vogue in many Colorado charter schools. The criteria for expanding charter schools places an emphasis on “patriotic and classical education.” This priority is directly associated with reports that “right-wing Christians are taking over the Charter school industry.”

In their exhaustive study “A Sharp Turn Right,” the Network for Public Education authors describe how charter classical schools signal “the creation of a new breed of charter schools that are imbued with the ideas of right-wing Christian nationalism.” The NPE report explains how “classical charter schools emphasize ‘values’ or ‘virtues,’ which stand as shorthand for quoted scripture. This is especially true of the latest crop of classical charters, which have opened since 2017, the first school year during the Trump Administration.” 

The NPE report identifies several Colorado classical charter schools and asserts that classical “schools have become weapons of the right as they seek to destroy democratically governed public schools while turning back the clock of education and social progress by a century.” Professor Derek Black describes this focus on patriotic and classical education as “labels through which conservatives have counteracted woke education (with) their own extreme right version of history & hero worship.”

According to data from the Colorado Department of Education, more than a third of Colorado’s 264 charter schools use “classical” or “core knowledge” curriculum, which coincides with Trump’s focus on both patriotic education and values-based education. The Classical Academy charter school in Colorado Springs highlights their essential mission to “nourish the soul” in their educational philosophy. Liberty Common school’s philosophy in Fort Collins describes how that school celebrates “capstones” representing the “highest order of virtue and character,” including “prudence, temperance, and patriotism.” Ridgeview Classical schools believe “that an American exceptionalism exists and is worthy of examination and reverence, and that through a proper understanding of one’s country, genuine patriotism is both possible and admirable.” 

The four Colorado Ascent Classical Academy schools and Golden View Classical Academy are part of the Hillsdale College K-12 education system, whose K-12 school program director Eric Coykendall, worked for the Claremont Institute, an organization that has backed Trump since 2016. At the Ascent Classical Academy of Northern Colorado school commencement in May, Bradley Birzer from Hillsdale College invokedboth Christian virtues and the seven virtues taught at the school, stating it is “the virtues—through God’s grace—that keep us on the straight and narrow path of morality, dignity, and freedom.”

E.D. Hirsch, the founder of Core Knowledge, published articles decrying the country’s slide into an anti-nationalist mindset that has taken over the public schools. “My thesis,” writes Hirsch, “is that our young people’s low opinion of their own country has been intensified by the current disrepute of nationalism in any form in our schools and universities. This anti-nationalism has been a big mistake.”

Hirsch says the role of schools should be to foster “the right kind of nationalism.” The core knowledge curriculum is used in nearly 60 Colorado charter schools. 

Not all of Colorado’s charter schools adhere to Trump’s calls for patriotism, classical education, and conservative ideology connected to Christian values. However, the number that do align with this vision will soon increase.  June 17, even with vocal opposition from members of the community, the state-appointed members of the Charter School Institute authorized the approval of a new “classical” charter school, John Adams Academy, in Douglas County. This school will be part of the John Adams Academies charter network in California. Their board includes a chaplain, and its founder, Dean Forman, cites a culture of debauchery in public schools, prioritizes Christian beliefs in his blog and focuses on virtues and patriotism as central elements in his three California charter schools. 

Will Colorado charter schools, the Charter School Institute, and state legislators continue to align with the Trump vision for public education? It remains to be seen how widespread the impact of the new Trump education priorities will have on Colorado’s K-12 education system.