The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University has just released its research study of Texas charter school performance and its results are extremely encouraging, as I quote from its introduction: “When compared to the findings of earlier studies of Texas charter school performance, the overall results show improvement in both subjects (reading and math)……With a positive and significant impact for reading gains and breakeven results for math progress, the collective performance of Texas charter schools has improved. This trend is reinforced by the year by year results. Looking at the three growth year periods of this study separately, the trend for reading and math are both positive. By the {fourth and} final year of the study there is statistically significant growth in both reading and math.”
This is by any measure good news for the charter movement in Texas and even better for the 240,000 students currently attending public charter schools in the state and the many more who are on various charter waiting lists. And it comes at a critical time under new legislation which requires the Texas Education Agency to revoke a school’s charter if that school fails to meet academic and/or financial accountability standards for three consecutive years.
But hold the applause. There are some groups that have different priorities than advancing student achievement and providing students and their parents with more education choices that meet their needs. For in the special legislative session now underway, significant groups have withdrawn their support for a pending school finance reform bill because for the first time it would include funding for new charter school facilities. These groups, including the Texas chapter of the NAACP, the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, and the Texas State Teachers Association, are obviously and blatantly placing the priorities of adults and their special interests ahead of the kids who are languishing in under-performing schools or on waiting lists for openings in charters that are in need of expansion capital to accommodate demand.
In the case of the teachers unions, what else is new? They routinely block expansion of education choice because it tends to dilute their membership numbers and dues as well as their power, which is really their top priority–it’s a protection racket. But this is particularly sad in the case of the NAACP which purports to represent the minority children who bear the brunt of failed traditional schools and are in most need of escape options. As Texas Aspires Chairman and former Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams said, “It saddens me to see the representatives of a civil rights group become so embattled in the national politics of education that they fail to see the promise of more funding for all public schools or the great work so many charters are doing with students of color”. Shameful indeed.
Jim,
The teachers unions, like so many others, have missed their opportunity to behave more like guildes, advancing the quality of their craft by working with administration to restore the liberal arts curriculum and the discipline necessary to the orderly classrooms necessary to learning itself.
Since Michigan became a right to work state teachers have been opting against paying dues to the union in numbers which threaten the power of the unions. Had the unions been helping make teachers more successful in the classroom by opposing the social work dragged into that workplace they would have proved their worth to the teachers as well as the administration and the taxpayers.
I agree.
Jim, would you allow me to put this on my RepublicanChoice50 blog. I will reference The Texas Pilgrim and you. You have such a knowledge of the education issue I would be pleased if you say yes. But It will not offend me if you say no
Vern – Yes, please proceed.