By Mimi Rothschild

The problems with charter schools in Texas are not limited to just one or two schools. There are charter schools all over Texas that are robbing students of a quality education, but state officials are having a tough time closing them down.

For example, Texas state officials are trying to close down the American Academy of Excellence charter school for four straight years of low ratings and financial mismanagement, but two bills that would have closed the American Academy of Excellence, and dozens of other struggling charter schools, didn’t make it very far at all. There are now a total of five bills which would’ve have closed failing charter schools in Texas that never passed due to a large number of opponents. But why do people oppose closing down charter schools that fail to educate the next generation of lawmakers, politicians, scientists, teachers, doctors, accountants, laborers, etc?

“Opponents of the bills say they would have punished campuses that are reaching out to dropouts, teen parents and other students who couldn’t make it in traditional public schools. Republican Representative Sid Miller said the school can’t be expected to meet traditional standards when its students arrive three to six grades behind other children their age.”

And what do Texas supporters of closing charter schools down say?

“Schools that can’t boost students’ test scores and get them to graduate aren’t doing young people any favors.”

I definitely agree with the last statement. Not only are charter schools wasting taxpayers’ money, but they are also setting their students up to fail once they graduate. Receiving a diploma is great, but a diploma from a Texas charter school most likely symbolizes a sub par education that was possibly influenced by cheating. Texas charter schools are doing a disservice to their students by staying open if they aren’t educating them or giving students the proper skills to succeed in life.

On the other hand, homeschooling offers hundreds of benefits. One of the most important benefits of homeschooling is that homeschooling delivers first-class customized educations to homeschooling students which equip them with skills that will allow them to be successful for the rest of their lives.

By Mimi Rothschild

According to The Dallas Morning News, some charter schools in Texas are nothing short of fraudulent and Texans are now paying dearly for a decision they made in 1998. On September 10th, 1998, the State Board of Education in Texas came under fire from the audience and decided to reject recommendations made by the Texas Education Agency for deciding which charter applicants would be receive charters; in turn, they decided to give every charter school applicant a charter. Since then, chaos has ensued.

A study done by The Dallas Morning News analyzed data from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. The data was taken from 2005 and 2006. The Dallas News analysts discovered “that by far the most extreme cases of cheating were in the state’s lightly regulated and privately run charter schools.” Two cases of cheating come from a married couple who each run their own charter school, Jesse Jackson Academy and Theresa B. Lee.

Here’s a brief profile of Jesse Jackson Academy:

• Received charter in 1998 despite being ranked 67th out 84 applications by the Texas Education Agency.

• Started By Jesse Jackson (not the famous Jesse Jackson).

• State officials have reprimanded the school for reporting false dropout data, ignoring accounting requirements, and keeping poor records.

• In 1999, none of the five teachers were certified by Texas. Two teachers had no college degrees at all.

• Jesse Jackson Academy has received the lowest rating from Texas five times.

• No student passed the math, science or English language arts sections of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills in 2003.

• Multiple experts say that four of the blatant and severe cases of cheating all came from Jesse Jackson Academy.

Jesse Jackson Academy is not the only charter school to run amuck in Texas. There are scores of other failing charter schools in the Lone Star State, as you’ll read in part two. It is astonishing that the State Board of Education could lack so much common sense and hand out 84 charters to 84 applicants, some of whom have no business running schools at all. With Texas public schools failing and Texas charters schools cheating in addition to failing, Christian Texas parents should seriously consider homeschooling their children.