Texas Legislator Seeks to Improve State’s Ability to Monitor Charter Schools

Reports of failing charter schools are all too familiar to Representative Jim Dunnam (Flemming Fellow 2000). As the subcommittee chair of the House Public Education Committee, which has examined the record of charter schools, Dunnam has seen both the promise and peril of the charter school system in Texas. “The charter schools have not proven themselves as an institution to be worthwhile,” says Dunnam. “There are schools that are clearly doing a superior job. And some are doing a horrific job. But across the board, they are significantly under performing compared with conventional public schools.”

In 1995, the Texas legislature authorized the establishment of 20 charter schools with the idea of giving parents choices and creating competition. Now, with over 26,000 students spread out over 163 charter schools, questions are being raised about their performance and long-term viability. In the 1998 school year, students attending charter schools scored significantly below their ethnic and socioeconomic counterparts in traditional schools on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), and the dropout rate was nearly 15 times the statewide average. There has been a real financial cost as well. As of May 2000, seven charter schools owed the state approximately $730,000 from overpayments that have not been recovered.

In an extreme example of the problems of charter schools, Emma L. Harrison Charter School of Waco abruptly closed its doors in late 1999 with about 90 percent of the school’s pupils having to repeat their grade. Dunnam will see to it that the case of Harrison Charter School does not happen again. In January, he will introduce legislation to improve the state’s ability to monitor charter schools.

“I don’t think we should shut down 160 schools,” said Dunnam. “Probably the most widely agreed upon aspect is that the state board and Texas Education Agency clearly do not have adequate resources to oversee the existing system.”

Dunnam, elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1996, also serves as Vice-Chairman of the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence. He is a member of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, the Texas Rural Caucus and the Texas Conservative Caucus.