On Monday February 25, 2013, the Editorial Board of the Austin American Statesman wrote an article titled “Not so fast on more charter schools”. The
article begins by describing Senator Dan Patrick’s “ambitious” bill that was
filed “requiring public school districts to lease facilities to charter schools
at fair market value”. The bill also includes raising the cap on the number of
licenses the state grants charter schools. Under this new proposal the
governor, lieutenant governor and education commissioner would appoint seven
members to a new state board. The problems that arise with the passing of this
new bill are quite a few. First of all, public schools would most likely
receive more spending cuts with the expansion of schools choices pushed by the
legislators. This would practically force local districts to close building,
which will potentially become available for charter operators. Also, giving
more power to the states leaders to appoint the “politically connected” may
lead to a drawback.
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There are some really interesting statistics on the comparison of
public schools vs. charter schools regarding their academic excellence as well
as their down sides.
Texas
Education Agency 2010-2011 School Year
Charter: 199 Districts
8.5%à were rated exemplary
17.6%à were considered academically unacceptable
Public: 1,029 Districts
4.4%à were rated exemplary
4.9%à were considered academically unacceptable
Charters school academic success percentage is close to double
that of public schools but their academic poorness percentage is by far higher
than that of public schools.
Individual
School Campuses rated by TEA
Public Schools: 8,044 Campuses
14.6%à were exemplary
5.9%à were academically unacceptable
Charter Schools: 482 Campuses
11.6%à were exemplary
11.2%à were academically unacceptable
Once again the “academic unacceptable” percentage for public
schools is substantially lower than that of charter schools.
I agree with the editorials concern for the rapid amount of
changes the legislature wants to achieve. It is not that charter schools are
bad, I mean I really think they are a good option to leave open, but why give
up on public education. Rapid changes without thorough thought can lead to
higher percentages of unmanageable academic problems in both charter and public
schools. Just as the editorial stated on their final sentence: “the state
should prove it can manage and improve the ones we have (charter schools)
before lawmakers raise the cap to allow more."
I believe the arguments made from the editorial team towards
this matter were well developed. They did a good job pointing out the
possible negative outcomes of the bill that was proposed while at the same time
they make it clear that they are not against options such as charter schools
being open to families, but rather suggest that legislature should first
improve the existing charter districts.
