On Monday, Texas AFT Legislative Counsel Patty Quinzi testified at the Texas Education Agency about the proposed Charter School Performance Framework (CSPF) for charter schools. The indicators within the CSPF are supposed to evaluate each charter school’s compliance with federal law, state law, state rules or regulations, and/or the charter contract.
However, the proposed changes strike program indicators for bilingual and special education populations from the operations standards. In other words, this CSPF focuses on school operations and not on academic performance for these two major student groups, which charters have a record of under-serving. Quinzi testified that rather than abandoning these student groups, the CSPF needs stronger indicators—including those ensuring teacher qualifications, and to hold charter schools (with no elected board oversight) accountable for properly serving these student groups.
Without a locally-elected school board to oversee charter school operations, there must be much stronger indicators in place to catch patterns of undeserving these students—many of which charter school whistleblowers have reported in the past. Texas AFT joined 20 other education and policy organizations in a letter to TEA with comprehensive comments and recommendations on the CSPF rules.
