Have Charters Run Their Course?

When I worked as a public school educator in Texas, charter school growth was substantial. Since 1995 when the Texas Legislature approved charter schools, growth occurred in both numbers of students and numbers of charters throughout The Lone Star State.

Until now.

The Texas Tribune reported last week that,

“Texas charter schools recently saw their smallest enrollment bump in state history, signaling that similar forces crushing traditional public districts may soon hit them as well.”

“Students have enrolled in charters at significant rates since they launched in the state three decades ago – even as traditional public school enrollment started to fall. But with birth rates going down, new schooling options popping up and fears regarding immigration enforcement spreading, experts say that growth may soon reverse.”

“This year, Texas public schools experienced their first non-pandemic enrollment decline in nearly 40 years. The drop of more than 76,000 students, mostly Hispanic children, occurred primarily in traditional neighborhood campuses.”

“But charters, public schools managed independently by nonprofits and private companies – continued growing their enrollment. The number of students in state-approved charters increased every year since 1995.”

But charter school enrollment in Texas has slowed.

“State data shows that year-to-year growth in charter enrollment over the past three decades ranged from 3.1% to a high of 217%. However, that growth dropped to 2.4% this year, according to nonprofit group Texas 2036.”

High-performing charters had the opportunity to become the saviors of our traditional K-12 learning system back in the early part of the 21^st century. But charters like KIPP, IDEA, and YES College Prep, all started in Texas, and others like BASIS (Arizona) and Success Academy (New York City) didn’t have enough courage to expand their enrollment numbers beyond even a district the size of Philadelphia. So most of those charters, if not all of them, became known as “boutique” learning organizations – centers of excellence when it came to academic performance and school culture, but unable to grow to a size that really mattered.

Whereas charters were seen as the “great hope” to save our public school system 20 years ago, today different types of learning organizations like homeschools, learning pods, and microschools probably need to carry the torch moving forward.

Charter schools have had a good ride over the past 30 years, but their impact moving forward is probably minimal.

Til tomorrow. SVB