Often great concern about failing (academically unacceptable) charter schools is shown by special interest groups that have a vested financial interest in protecting the ISD system status quo. These groups never show concern for failing schools in their ISD system. Let’s look at some numbers for low-income students in Travis County obtained from the TEA website.
During the 2010-11 school year, 3 charter schools were failing. There were 230 school-lunch-program students attending these failing schools. This represented 5.9% of all the school-lunch-program students attending charter schools in Travis County.
For comparison during this same school year, Travis County had 12 ISD public schools that were failing. There were 7,300 school-lunch-program students attending these failing schools. This represented 8.8% of all the school-lunch-program students attending ISD public schools in Travis County.
So is the problem worse at charter schools or ISD schools? In total numbers, low-income students in failing ISD schools is 7,300 versus in failing charter schools is 230. But even as a percentage, ISD’s 8.8% is worse than charter’s 5.9%.
ISD defenders should worry about their big problem and be thankful that the charters have a smaller problem.
