Texas school districts using a new state law to pursue innovative partnerships with charters have turned to familiar faces to run them.
Traditional school districts are teaming up with nonprofits or local universities to open charter schools, but they’re largely placing the operation of the campuses in the hands of administrators who once worked for their districts.
Last week, leaders participating in the new partnerships gathered at Texas Wesleyan University to discuss why they turned to the controversial law: It gives them more state money and flexibility in things like staffing and curriculum.
Fort Worth, Waco and Lubbock officials were struggling with chronically failing schools, some of which would see an improvement one year only to miss state academic standards yet again in the next. They wanted more resources and the freedom to try new approaches to stop “the bounce,” they said.
“We can’t do this work alone, and we need some outside sources to help us,” said Doyle Vogler, Lubbock’s associate superintendent.
The law funnels more money per student to partnership campuses than the state gives to traditional schools. The in-district charter schools must be run by a separate entity that has autonomy to make decisions.
Schools struggling academically also get a two-year pause on certain state accountability interventions — such potential state takeover of a district — if they are under a partnership, making it an attractive option to districts facing such dire consequences.
Fort Worth teamed up with Texas Wesleyan for five leadership academy campuses. The university’s board has governance over the partnership. But the work is being overseen by the administrator who previously ran FWISD’s innovation and transformation efforts.
A former Lubbock ISD elementary principal manages the four campuses now run by a nonprofit partner. The nonprofit in charge of five Waco campuses is run by a former assistant superintendent in the district.
And in South Texas, three districts joined up to create the Rural Schools Innovation Zone that allows them to pull resources to offer dual enrollment in college-level courses and career-focused programs. That program is overseen by a former principal in one of the districts.
Starlee Coleman, CEO of the Texas Charter Schools Association, said such arrangements aren’t in the spirit of what lawmakers intended. And that’s made some existing charter operators hesitant to seek such partnerships, she said.
“They’re concerned about what’s evolved so far because districts are using these newly created nonprofits — that are essentially a spinoff of the district — and that there’s not going to be that arm’s length difference that they envisioned,” she said.
Charter partnerships have faced fierce opposition across the state as teacher and parent groups push back, saying they fear the privatization of schools and that decisions will be made by a group of people not elected by the public as trustees are.
