Texas’s public school endowment is looking into funding charter schools, the Austin American-Statesman reported last week. The money would be used to reward charter schools with high educational outcomes and help them expand.
The endowment’s board has stepped in because the Texas Legislature has been wary of providing more support for charter school experiments, in spite of strong outcomes from charter schools. Charter schools provide an invaluable service for low-income students, the community they most often serve, helping to close the achievement gap between these students and their more affluent peers. A study from Stanford University recently found that New York City charter school students were able to almost match the performance of their peers in affluent suburban communities in math and close 66 percent of the gap in English.
We’ve seen those results from charter schools in Texas, too. YES Prep in Houston was named one of the top 100 public schools in the nation by Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. According to their website, 100 percent of graduating seniors have been accepted into four-year colleges and universities. Here in Austin, the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) charter school shows higher-than-average TAKS scores in spite of serving the poorest area in the city, according to their Web site.
Opponents of the investment argue that the public school endowment should only make investments that generate the most money possible for the state’s public schools, a narrow view that ignores the benefits a strong charter school sector provides public school students. The Wall Street Journal points to a recent study by the Manhattan Institute showing that even students who do not attend a charter school benefit academically when their public school is exposed to charter competition. The study showed that as more students leave for a charter, the students left behind show an increase in reading proficiency. In the worst-performing public schools, typically found in low-income areas and districts with a large number of minority students, charter competition helped the most. The Wall Street Journal argues that this effect is due to public schools responding to competition for state attendance-based funding.
Investment from the endowment would go a long way toward helping charter schools achieve financial security. Unlike traditional school districts that pay for capital costs like buildings with bond packages, charter schools do not have taxing authority. All public funding for charter schools comes from the state based on student attendance. But the Statesman points out that charter schools are not even eligible for attendance-based facility funding, a difference that means they are paid about $1,000 less per student per year than traditional districts. As a result, most charter schools rent their buildings and operate with the risk that they could one day lose their schools to a higher bidder.
Some opponents of the endowment’s board’s actions have argued that it is the duty of the Legislature to respond to the needs of charter schools. I couldn’t agree more. But while the Legislature defeats bill after bill because it is unwilling to raise taxes to support proven educational outcomes, the board’s investment is sorely needed. Texas students can’t afford to lose the most promising educational experiment in generations.
Counts is a plan II honors and history senior.
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