AUSTIN – The number of Texas children on a waiting list to attend a public charter school more than doubled last year, according to new data released this afternoon by the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
“For the 2008-09 school year, we identified 40,813 students on waiting lists, more than doubling last year’s total,” said Brooke Terry, education policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “These numbers demonstrate a large parental and student demand for options other than the traditional public school.”
The Foundation released the report, “Charter Schools in Texas: The Waiting Lists Grow Longer,” at an Austin-area charter school this afternoon. Today’s report is an update of the Foundation’s August 2008 research, “Calculating the Demand for Charter Schools,” which was the first effort to compile a statewide charter school waiting list total for Texas.
Terry noted that while Texas’ open-enrollment charter school capacity increased by 12,000 students last year, the Texas charter school waiting list grew by 24,000 students. “For every new student who got a second chance at a better education, two others were left behind,” Terry said.
The Houston/Galveston region had the largest waiting list, consisting of 17,685 students. The Dallas/Fort Worth region was next largest with 10,184 students, while the Rio Grande Valley’s regional waiting list was 6,696 students. Austin’s regional waiting list was 3,085 students. Charter schools serve a higher percentage of minority and low-income students than traditional public schools.
The Foundation was joined for the research release by Sen. Dan Patrick (Houston), the author of last session’s Senate Bill 1830. That legislation, which would have raised the state’s cap on open-enrollment charter schools, unanimously passed the Senate but died in the House at the end of session. Texas hit the cap of 215 open-enrollment charters last November, and because the Legislature failed to raise the cap, the State Board of Education may not approve any new charters unless an existing operator relinquishes its charter.
“The State of Texas must be willing to educate differently and support the innovation found in so many charter schools,” said Sen. Patrick. “Too many kids are left waiting to find a school where they can succeed. Lifting the arbitrary cap on charter schools would be a big step toward addressing the drop-out student problem throughout our state.”
The report recommends:
– Eliminating or increasing the arbitrary cap on charter schools; – Measuring demand by annually tracking charter school waiting list data by region and statewide; – Lowering barriers to expansion and replication for successful charter schools; and – Removing unnecessary regulations that limit flexibility and innovation.
Brooke Terry is an education policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the principal author of “Charter Schools in Texas: The Waiting Lists Grow Longer.”
Sen. Dan Patrick represents District 7 (northwestern Harris County) in the Texas Senate. He is vice-chairman of the Senate Committees on Education and Higher Education, and the author of last session’s SB 1830, which would have raised the state’s cap on open-enrollment charter schools.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit free-market research institute based in Austin.
Primary website: www.TexasPolicy.com Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/TexasPublicPolicyFoundation Twitter feed: www.Twitter.com/TPPF
– 30 –