>So far, 48 charter operators—which are required to be nonprofits, governmental entities, or higher education institutions—have received at least $735 million in state and federal funds (passed through the school districts) under the program SB 1882 inaugurated, which came to be called “Texas Partnerships.” These operators largely control the budgets and operations of the public schools they helm.
The nonprofit distinction is pointless when those nonprofits are permitted to funnel the vast majority of their income to for-profit entities that do the actual education work.
>Under most Texas Partnership contracts, school districts retain the responsibility to maintain facilities, furniture, and equipment, offer transportation and meals to students, and provide special education services, but they give up control over administration, curriculum, and budgets.
Textbook case of privatize the profits and socialize the costs.
>In response to an Observer question about the Beaumont school’s academic performance, a spokesperson for Green Dot Public Schools noted via email that its related organization, Green Dot Public Schools Southeast Texas, ran the school and was dissolved in June 2024, adding: “We do not have additional background or context that we can provide.”
Its *shell company*. Call it what it is.
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An interesting thought experiment: what if teachers collectively chose to form these non-profits themselves? And ran the schools as they saw fit? Education co-ops, perhaps.
>Shelly Haney, a longtime educator, turned Midland ISD’s Goddard Junior High from an F-rated to a C-rated school as principal from 2013 to 2019. That’s why, in 2019, then-superintendent Orlando Riddick asked her, while she was still Goddard’s principal, to start a nonprofit and apply for a Texas Partnership contract to run the school in addition to Bunche Elementary School and later other elementaries, Haney said. The charter organization would be called the REACH Network.
Yay! So it's been tried at least.
>But Haney ran into the same obstacles that her predecessors at Bunche had faced: community poverty, low teacher retention, and then COVID-19. There were early signs of trouble when Bunche’s new principal quit in September 2019, four weeks after the school year started. Three more principals left during the four years REACH was in operation. Amid teacher shortages that got worse during the pandemic, Midland ISD waived certification requirements —as allowed under state law—and there were fewer experienced teachers available in the district’s hiring pool to help carry out reforms, Haney told the Observer.
So there is no Stand and Deliver magic formula to addressing poverty, I take it. For this approach to work, the co-op will need broader political and economic support.
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>There’s also no record that School Innovation Collaborative applied for federal tax-exempt status in the Internal Revenue Service database. San Antonio ISD terminated its contract early with the organization in 2023. CEO Doug Dawson did not respond to the Observer’s request for comment.
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>Colbert described those kinds of paperwork issues as red flags. “These are public tax dollars that are going to pay these people, and there are requirements of the law that they’re not meeting,” he said.
What in the actual fuck? That's a red flag alright. But it's a red flag for the boards inking the contracts. We're talking absolutely basic, due diligence 101 shit here.
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>Regarding Texas Partnership operators in general, Quinzi, the teachers union legal counsel, said: “They’re going to put as much money into their pockets and the least amount of money in the classroom.”
At least the union rep knows how to tell it like it is. All of the trustees and politicians quoted in this article keep dancing around the core contradiction.
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Finally: this article was very heavy in data. It needed graphs. Badly. But seeing as we're going to be implementing similar bad ideas on a much larger scale going forward here in Texas, the author is at least not going to be lacking in data for the foreseeable future.
7/16
