Charter School Promises Fall Short in Texas

So far as I know, I was the first principal in Kentucky to ask the Governor for permission to turn Cassidy School in Lexington into the state's first charter school.

My goal was simple - to focus only on Cassidy - and offload some of the burdensome state and local initiatives (ie. primary program) that I believed were actually making it harder for us to meet our goals.

Ed Ford, who was Secretary of Governor Paul Patton's cabinet, told me that Kentucky was not ready for charter schools. End of story.

So I don't have any particular antipathy toward charter schools in and of themselves.

But what I didn't know (or care about) at the time was that the state constitution requires the General Assembly to provide quality schools across the state. Making Cassidy even better while others floundered did nothing to meet this goal.

Viewed from the state level, any law governing the schools must work toward providing quality schools for each Kentucky student regardless of where children live or the wealth of their parents.

Some say charters are the way to accomplish this. The argument is that business opportunity will bring out entrepreneurs and competition will raise the quality of instruction for all kids. But so far, everything I read about charter schools tells me that, where they exist, they are performing about as well as the public schools - and no better.

Some are great. Some are terrible. Most are somewhere in between.

Where we do find success (in either setting) - we either find a highly supported (or select) student population; or a strong principal, a longer school year, and a faculty that is working their butts off.

But counting on charters to fix broken schools across the state is not likely to produce the promised long-term benefit. As more and more entrepreneurs understand how difficult the work is, and how narrow the fiscal margins, they're looking for better opportunities to make money.

This is the circumstance in Texas where entrepreneurs were invited to step in and establish charter schools - but nobody showed up.

This from the Dallas Morning News:

Failing Texas schools face dwindling options

AUSTIN – Fixing the worst schools in Texas is about to get harder.

A 2006 law meant to spur improvements at low-rated schools gave the state two options for campuses that rack up five consecutive years of "unacceptable" ratings – closure or the use of outside managers to run them.

In practice, though, there's just one choice.

The state did not attract a single bid – from either a private company or a nonprofit entity – after soliciting proposals for several months for an outside manager.

"At this point, we have no one to call on," said state Education Commissioner Robert Scott. "Because there are no takers, we are left with just one option – closure" for chronic underachievers....