According to KXAN TV News, parents and students from Johnston High School in Austin ISD met with school officials to dicuss the possibility of converting Johnston into a charter school focused on college prep courses. The meeting was held Saturday, June 21.

 

A representative of Southwest Key Community Center, Dr. Nellie Cantu, was also present at the meeting.

An editorial in USA Today points out some of the shining success stories from charter schools across the country.

Read the editorial here.

A struggling Catholic high school in Houston will become a public charter called Mt. Carmel Academy. The HISD trustees voted Thursday to save the 52 yr old school which had been recently closed by the Archdiocese of Houston-Galveston because of high operational costs.

 

The new charter academy will open this fall. To read more about this story, see the Houston Chronicle article, here.

Monday the Texas State Senate Select Committee on Public School Accountability held a hearing in Houston to address drop out recovery charters: those schools who focus on students who were not able to succeed in traditional public schools.

 

Audio of the hearing is available here.

 

Here is a short, partial recap, excerpted from The Quorum Report:

 

TESTIMONY CHALLENGES THE CONCEPT OF SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY
Hearing on accountability system shifts focus from schools to students.

 

Monday’s hearing of the Select Committee on Public School Accountability in Houston raised the toughest question Texas educators and lawmakers have to face: What exactly does it mean to leave no child behind, and what commitment is this state and its school districts willing to make to get every student to a diploma?....

Richard Marquez was the Department of Education’s first dropout czar. He’s now the president of the Texas CAN Academies. If education is viewed as inputs and outputs, then Marquez’s testimony focused on what a dropout recovery charter school may need to do for students that the traditional high school does not.

“I’m not saying we don’t want to be held accountable, but maybe you should be giving more points for growth than you do at the present time,” Marquez said. “Look at who you give me and check me on what I do with them. I keep them in the school and off the streets and out of people’s homes, out of your homes. The alternative school system is intended to be the safety net for our children. There are no new ways of teaching, no new pedagogical approaches. I’m sorry. It just takes some good old-fashioned hard work, but it also takes time and effort.”

The truth is the state’s accountability system and the No Child Left Behind Act were not intended to guarantee student success. Instead, the system was created to measure – and, depending on your viewpoint, punish – schools or districts that are unable to meet a state standard for success. So it’s not surprising that Co-Chair Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) would raise the question: Why should dropout recovery charter schools be given any more latitude on accountability than traditional schools if both schools are teaching similar populations and the dropout recovery charter school is unable to produce student achievement gains?

But the invited testimony of the dropout recovery charter schools – and the comments from community leaders with that The Metropolitan Organization – turn that theory on its head. What if the No Child Left Behind Act is actually about the child? What would it mean to pledge whatever resources and time it takes to make sure every child succeeds, no matter what the reason is for failure?

When you sign onto a dropout recovery charter, you understand it may take 1 adult for every 6 students or 1 counselor for every 90 students, Marquez said. You might spend as much time on personal challenges – poverty or pregnancy – as you do on class work. You might even agree to take a child back four, five or even six times after you kick them out of school, even though you know every single time that student leaves, he’s counted as a dropout against the school, Marquez said.

Dropout recovery charters simply want more time and more credit for the progress they make, Marquez said. Marquez said his schools would never meet No Child Left Behind’s Adequate Yearly Progress, but 932 students graduate from CAN Academies who ultimately passed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.

......

On Tuesday, Governor Sonny Perdue of Georgia signed into law HB 881, which allows for the creation of the Georgia Charter Schools Commission. This signature made Georgia the 18th state to create an independent alternative charter school authorizer.

 

Under the new law, local tax dollars as well as state funding would follow pupils to charter schools created by the commission.

 

For more information about this law, and other legislative changes in charter policy in Georgia, see this story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The Center for Education Reform (CER) has released the results of a recent survey which attempted to gauge American's attitudes about charter schools.

 

The results show that that public support for charters is rooted in Americans' appreciation of innovation, accountability and diversity. However, the study showed that fewer than 20 percent of Americans were aware of the concept of charter schools and that charters are public schools.

 

Longitudinal survey data indicates that more information about charters leads to a more positive opinion. To access a PDF of survey results, click here.