Editorial: Lynacre Shows Why Tighter Controls Are Needed for Charter Schools
February 25, 2008
As far back as 2002, the southern Dallas charter school for at-risk children inflated attendance figures to the Texas Education Agency. Under pressure, it repaid the state $200,000.
Written by Editorial, The Dallas Morning News
If state lawmakers want a textbook case for tougher academic and financial oversight of charter schools, they need look no further than the now-failed Lynacre Academy.
As far back as 2002, the southern Dallas charter school for at-risk children inflated attendance figures to the Texas Education Agency. Under pressure, it repaid the state $200,000.
Three years later, state auditors found more inaccurate attendance records and evidence that the school still owed about $750,000.
For two years, TEA haggled with the school over the money. Lynacre filed bankruptcy in the fall and closed last month, leaving TEA and other creditors seeking payment and students scurrying for a new school at midyear. Lynacre had missed academic targets six consecutive years, one of only two charter campuses in the state with such an abysmal record.
It's a stunning and avoidable failure that must not be allowed to continue. Last session, state Sen. Florence Shapiro sponsored a bill to make it easier for Texas to close low-performing charter schools and send more money to successful charter schools. The measure passed the Senate but never reached the full House, the fifth time in the past four years that a charter reform bill hit a brick wall in the House.
Mrs. Shapiro blamed the bill's demise on "colleagues in the House with ties to low-performing charter schools." A main opponent was Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville, whose wife founded and operated a troubled charter school in Stephenville.
Lawmakers must seriously back tighter oversight next session, and we hope Mrs. Shapiro champions this issue again. Education needs the innovation that good charters bring, but troubled schools only waste taxpayer dollars and erode public confidence. Not to mention cruelly betraying the trust of parents, students and educators.
CHARTER SCHOOL REFORM
The bill sponsored by Sen. Florence Shapiro that failed in the last legislative session would have:
•Hastened closure of consistently low-performing charter schools that do not have at least 25 percent of students passing state assessments.
•Revoked the charter of any school rated unacceptable for academic or financial reasons for two consecutive years.
•Compelled that public charter districts operate so that no school can escape accountability and that reporting requirements apply to all.
•Rewarded consistently high-performing charter schools with facilities funding.
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