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Texas Education Agency Commissioner Robert Scott made news when he announced that he intends to make it easier for effective public charter schools to expand in Texas. This is welcome news for charter school leaders and the more than 17,000 Texas students who are on waiting lists to attend charter schools.
Mike Norman, the Star-Telegram’s editorial director for Arlington and Northeast Tarrant County, wrote in his Nov. 6 column that Scott is overstepping his authority by lifting the cap on the number of open-enrollment charter schools authorized to operate in Texas and is picking a fight with the state Legislature. Charter school leaders disagree. We believe this step will allow for measured and responsible growth of Texas public charter schools during the next couple of years. It is true that Texas lawmakers failed to pass a bill last session allowing for managed growth of charters. It’s also true that the Legislature previously granted Scott the ability to ease the replication process for successful charter schools. This allows a number of outstanding schools — ones that outpace traditional public schools by almost any metric — to add campuses without retracing the bureaucratic steps they took to open their first school. Most of these schools now have a decade or more of academic success. Allowing the most successful schools to grow without red tape just makes good sense. Harmony Schools, a statewide network of math and science charters with a campus in Fort Worth, would be able to expand its successful program to keep pace with demand. Scott is sending a clear signal to the U.S. Department of Education that Texas deserves competitive grant funding. President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have essentially told states that without robust charter communities, they need not apply for any of the $4.35 billion "Race To The Top" Fund (R2T). We are confident that Scott’s recent waivers to streamline the replication process for highly effective charters will help fuel the charter movement in a positive direction, and simultaneously help Texas in the R2T application. The R2T funds will help all public schools in Texas, not just charter schools.Public charters are part of the solution to our education challenges. In addition to tipping his hat to Harmony Schools, Norman wrote about well-known charter systems like KIPP (Knowledge is Power), YES Prep and Uplift Education. These schools are successfully graduating many first generation college-goers, and that is a great story — but is only half the picture. A growing number of charters are leading the way in dropout recovery. Schools like Premier High School, serving students in grades 6-12 in Fort Worth, also deserve attention. All charters educate a higher percentage of both minority and at-risk students, but dropout recovery schools like Premier give students who’ve already been failed by the traditional system another chance at success. Fort Worth parents and students deserve more choices like Harmony and Premier.The Obama administration, like the Bush administration, is embracing both the future potential and the current results of public charters. Scott should be commended for promoting charter school growth in Texas.David Dunn is executive director of the Texas Charter Schools Association. ddunn@ txcharterschools.org
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