Published by El Paso Matters here.

It’s time to talk about the Texas Education Agency’s unhealthy addiction to charter schools.

Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated. Originally intended to be “laboratories of innovation” for the public school system, charters have evolved into a vehicle for making big money off of taxpayers while skirting the oversight and accountability that come with running an independent school district. 

Charter school chains serve 7% of Texas students yet take up 15% of Texas’ education budget.  The number of charters in Texas has nearly doubled over the past decade, putting a strain on the state budget and wreaking fiscal havoc with education budgets in districts like Houston Independent School District. Most of this vast growth has occurred without the knowledge or consent of Texas voters.

The Texas Education Agency reviews charter applications, and finalists are presented to the State Board of Education, on which I serve. We are allowed to interview applicants and may either approve or veto each application. Whatever happens after that is out of our hands.

As the only elected representatives in the approval process, we have taken our job as safeguards of taxpayer dollars very seriously. What we’ve found has been troubling. 

The TEA and Commissioner Mike Morath have routinely recommended awarding your tax dollars to applicants who lacked even the most basic plans for things like transportation, food service, and providing for students with special needs. Many finalists acknowledged they would offer nothing different from the school district in which they would be placed. Others would have imported unvetted curriculum while exporting our tax dollars to operators in California and New York.

I’m proud that the SBOE has fought to protect Texans’ hard-earned money; at the last board meeting, we vetoed four of the five finalists up for consideration. But that is where our authority ends. 

The vast majority of charter growth in Texas has occurred through expansion amendments under which an existing charter chain is allowed to open additional campuses. Expansions fall entirely under the authority of the TEA and Commissioner Morath. That means a charter could expand to your school district and siphon away funding without you finding out until your taxes go up and bus routes and campuses begin to close.

Fortunately, the Biden Administration has issued new federal rules cracking down on fraud and deception within the charter school industry. Any new charter or expansion applicant must now reach out to the community and hold a public hearing before being granted federal funds. Charter schools must also explain their plans to ensure diversity and provide a community impact analysis.

These gains are significant, but the charter school lobby has already engineered a failsafe. 

This past election cycle, charter school profiteers led by billionaire Netflix founder Reed Hastings and Walmart heir Jim Walton contributed nearly $2 million to pro-charter candidates in Texas – including candidates for the SBOE. One SBOE candidate received more than $250,000 and several others more than $180,000. Compare that to the $2,000 I spent on my first campaign, and you get the picture – charter tycoons have decided to literally buy the elected body that considers charter applications. 

It’s time for an intervention.

The Texas Legislature must expand SBOE authority to include charter expansion amendments and must prohibit SBOE candidates from accepting political contributions from charter schools and organizations that represent them. Texas taxpayers deserve better. Our kids deserve better.

Let’s break the addiction before there’s no public school system left to save.

El Paso: State Board of Education Member Georgina C. Pérez delivers testimony during the Texas Education Agency’s public hearing on the Charter School Performance Framework, strongly encouraging public oversight of charter operators’ academic performance.

Please consider testifying at the public hearing to reinforce the importance of including information relevant to parents and public and including standards that better represent whether charters serve all students.
 
You must register to participate in the public hearing (see link) and to testify (see question on the registration form).

• Link to register (from TEA): The public may participate in the hearing by linking to the meeting at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAld-2upjwuGd3aeJct4ecE2MgDiWbU4Nrn.
  
• You must register online by 9:00 a.m. on the day of the hearing (Monday, 4 Oct) to testify via Zoom.
  
• You may also send written testimony to charterschools@tea.texas.gov, by 9 a.m. on the day of the hearing.
  

Testimony will be limited to three minutes per speaker. The hearing will conclude once all who have registered have been given the opportunity to comment.

TEA is required by statute to create a Charter School Performance Framework (CSPF) that rates charter school performance using indicators in three areas:  Academic, Financial, and Operations.
 
TEA is updating the CSPF using 2020 data and taking comments from the public that are due on October 4, 2021.
TEA uses the CSPF ratings for a variety of important determination including,  oversight, eligibility for charter expansion amendment, charter renewal, non-renewal, and revocation. A charter school rated “high quality” on the CSPF is given preferential treatment.

Concerns have been raised that the indicators used in the CSPR do not provide a comprehensive picture of charter performance.  For example, the indicators do not measure whether charter schools underserve English Learners or students with special needs.

• TEA uses the CSPF to benefit charter schools rated “high quality,” even those charters that underserve English Learners or students with special needs.
• TEA uses the CSPF ratings for a variety of important determinations including oversight, eligibility for charter expansion amendments, and charter renewal, non-renewal, and revocation.
• For example, a charter school that serves only 2.1% students with special needs received a “high quality” rating on the CSPF in 2019 and has had 10 new charter campuses approved through the amendment process over the last three years.
• The CSPF is required by statute [TEC 12.1181(a)]
  

Senate Bill 3 takes the place of House Bill 3979, and is effective September 1, 2021:

• Section 3 (course credit for civic engagement) of the bill is effective at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year.
  
• Training sections and advisory board are effective September 1, 2021. 
• Rules that must be adopted by the TXSBOE must be adopted by December 31, 2022.

Below are summaries from the Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition:

To: El Paso & Dona Ana County Schools, Public & Private,

We are a coalition of providers that serve the children of the Borderland. As a collective we are extremely concerned about the new Delta Variant of the COVID-19 virus. In particular, the CDC has indicated this variant is more contagious and highly transmissible to younger persons. We are recommending as a group, the following safety guidelines in accordance with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendations. These guidelines are to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus and to guide the schools with possible/and or positive cases. The priority is to continue in-person learning and not have to resort to 100% virtual learning.

Prevention:

1. Vaccination is the leading public health prevention strategy to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Promoting vaccination can help schools safely return to in-person learning as well as extracurricular activities and sports.
2. Due to the circulating and highly contagious Delta variant, AAP recommends universal indoor masking by all students (age 2 and older), staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status. Masks should also be worn on school buses.
3. In addition to universal indoor masking, AAP recommends schools maintain at least 3 feet of physical distance between students within classrooms to reduce transmission risk. This physical distance should also be implemented on school buses.
4. Consider adding Plexiglas dividers on student’s desks, mainly those who are 12 years and younger, who do not qualify for a COVID-19 vaccine.
5. Symptom screening, on campus testing, ventilation, hand-washing, respiratory etiquette, cleaning, disinfection, staying home when sick, testing when symptomatic or if exposed, contact tracing in combination with quarantine and isolation, are also important layers of prevention to keep schools safe.
6. Students are required to quarantine if they are COVID-19 positive, awaiting test results or have been exposed to COVID-19 (if not fully vaccinated). They should also have access to virtual learning during their period of quarantine.
7. We also encourage virtual learning options for students who are immunocompromised or with special needs.
   

In my roles as Chair of Pediatrics at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and Chief Transformation Officer of El Paso Children’s Hospital I have witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of COVID-19 on children, their families, and our community. Of high concern, we have seen a significant uptick of cases among school-age children as they return to class over the past two weeks. As Vice President of the Board of Doctors of the World, USA, an organization that views indifference to preventable illness itself a disease, I implore you to give very serious consideration to policy requiring
masking in schools. As a pediatrician, I support guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)1 and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)2 that in-person learning options are preferable to virtual for both the academic and social-developmental merits. COVID-19 outbreaks, which could be averted by universal masking along with other mitigation practices, could force school closures and disrupt in-person children's education.

The Delta variant is a game changer with unknown long-term effects on our children. It is more than twice as contagious as the original COVID-19 strain and it is now the dominant strain in our community. Despite all of our recent progress in fighting this pandemic, the rapidly rising cases in the El Paso area now show a disappointing regression back to where we were nearly 8 months ago, with daily new cases in the - 200 range. El Paso Children’s Hospital is currently devoting 20 to 40% of it inpatient pediatric acute care beds due to COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses. Adult hospitalizations are also increasing at an alarming rate and more and more ICU beds are being used by COVID-19 patients.3 Current vaccination rates among children aged 12 to 15 in El Paso are less than 30%. This, combined with the lack of an approved COVID-19 vaccine for children less than 12 means that rates of protection in our classrooms are well below the 70-80% needed to achieve herd immunity.

To keep our children in school while keeping them healthy, I support the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation of universal masking Pre-K through 12 be required for all students, teachers, staff, and visitors, even for those who are vaccinated. This is consistent with the updated CDC guidance which was released on July 27th.

The recommendations include the following:

• Universal masking for everyone as noted above while indoors and when safe distances cannot be maintained.
  
• The schools should partner with local public health experts to determine when to safely discontinue universal masking.
  
• Mask exemptions due to underlying medical conditions should be permitted with authorization by a licensed medical practitioner (MD, DO, APRN, PA).
  
• Mask policies will be enforced according to the school's code of conduct and the necessary disciplinary action shall occur for individuals who do not comply.
  

These policies should be reviewed on a routine basis and modified according to the most
current data available due the fluid and ever-changing nature of this deadly disease.

I urge the El Paso area Superintendents, Deputy Superintendents, the Boards of Education, County Commissioners and all community leaders to mandate a universal mask policy for the safety and health of our children and our community as a whole.

Sincerely,
Glenn J. Fennelly, MD, MPH
Vice President of the Board
Doctors of the World, USA

El Paso - Currently, the hospitals in the El Paso community are nearly at capacity treating non-COVID patients. El Paso is also experiencing a shortage of medical personnel to treat patients. These are patients who are suffering from heart attacks, stroke and other ailments. If a surge of COVID infections were to hit El Paso, the existing capacity issues would overwhelm El Paso’s hospital systems beyond the point that was seen last Fall. To keep our kids, teachers, and school staff safe, we have pledged to support school districts that require face coverings in accordance with guidance from the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the U.S. Department of Education, and local health authorities. We have learned that mitigation efforts, including the use of a face covering, can save the lives of our children and teachers and allow them to focus on learning.
 
As more and more Texas communities take decisive action to protect public safety by defying Governor Abbott's ban on mask mandates, we strongly encourage Dr. Ocarranza to consider a mask requirement to slow the spread of COVID-19 in our community and keep our children safe. As the health authority for El Paso County, Dr. Ocarranza has both the authority and the responsibility to protect public health, and we stand ready to provide support. Nothing is more important than keeping our kids safe. The time for action is now.

K-12 COVID-19 Testing Project
https://tea.texas.gov/texas-schools/health-safety-discipline/covid/covid-19-support-public-health-orders#project

August 2021 LEA Rapid COVID Testing Opt-In Application
https://tea.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3zccpieKX3YjzoO
This application is intended for public schools that are not currently in the state sponsored K-12 testing project. This application closes on Thursday, August 29, 2021.  Public schools that are already in the program DO NOT need to fill out this application.