- Home-Rule Charter Schools (Texas Education Code §§12.014‐12.023): An entire school district may elect to convert to charter status by establishing a home‐rule charter. This conversion requires multiple steps including: the board of trustees establishing a commission to frame the charter, obtaining preclearance of the charter by the U.S. Department of Justice (if it would change the governance of the district), obtaining approval of the charter by the commissioner of education, adoption of the charter by a majority of the qualified voters in an election in which at least 25 percent of the district’s registered voters participate, and certification of the adopted charter to the secretary of state. At this time, no Texas school district has sought home‐rule conversion.
- Texas Association of School Boards(TASB)
- Click Here http://www.tasb.org/legislative/resources/documents/charters.pdf
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Just Say,"No."
What is being proposed is a Home-Rule Charter School District
How do you convert an independent public school district to a home-rule charter school district" while deceiving the public into thinking you are supporting Dallas Independent School District?
Adopting a home rule school district would automatically convert every school in Dallas Independent School District to a Home-Rule Charter School. Like New Orleans, Dallas would immediately become the largest charter school conversion of an independent public school district in the history of Texas and America.
Support Our Public Schools is NOT supporting the traditional public school system. The group is attempting to destroy traditional public education and replace it with an instant network of 100% charter schools.
This is why Mayor Mike Rawlings bashed traditional public schools at a meeting with members of the Hispanic community.
At the meeting Mayor Rawlings proclaimed his love for charter schools and called them better than traditional public schools - which is completely false. Most charter schools do not provide better test scores. Most charter schools are quite average, and many are underperforming.
Mayor Mike Rawlngs also mentioned New Orleans where the Hurricane Katrina disaster became an opportunity for politicians and charter school promoters to create the largest charter school experiment in the nation.
The proposed Dallas ISD charter school experiment would replace New Orleans as the largest charter school district in Texas and America.
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Louisiana's Recovery School District (a Charter School District) is a special, state-run district that focuses on remedying the damage Hurricane Katrina wrought on the schools in its path.
"One of those who saw opportunity in the floodwaters of New Orleans was the late Milton Friedman, grand guru of unfettered capitalism and credited with writing the rulebook for the contemporary, hyper-mobile global economy. Ninety-three years old and in failing health, "Uncle Miltie", as he was known to his followers, found the strength to write an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal three months after the levees broke. "Most New Orleans schools are in ruins," Friedman observed, "as are the homes of the children who have attended them. The children are now scattered all over the country. This is a tragedy. It is also an opportunity." (Milton Friedman, Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2005)---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friedman's radical idea was that instead of spending a portion of the billions of dollars in reconstruction money on rebuilding and improving New Orleans' existing public school system, the government should provide families with vouchers, which they could spend at private institutions.
In sharp contrast to the glacial pace with which the levees were repaired and the electricity grid brought back online, the auctioning-off of New Orleans' school system took place with military speed and precision. Within 19 months, with most of the city's poor residents still in exile, New Orleans' public school system had been almost completely replaced by privately run charter schools." (The Shock Doctrine - Naoimi Klein - Click Here)
Arnie Duncan the U.S. Secretary of Education openly advocates mayoral control of urban school districts.
"Speaking at a forum with mayors and superintendents, Duncan promised to help more mayors take over.
'At the end of my tenure, if only seven mayors are in control, I think I will have failed', Duncan said.
"He offered to do whatever he can to make the case. 'I'll come to your cities,' Duncan said. 'I'll meet with your editorial boards. I'll talk with your business communities. I will be there'."(Arne Duncan: Mayors Should Run Schools - NBC Chicago - 3-31-09) - Click Here
What will result? Will Dallas ISD schools be renamed to reflect the new charter school status? The Support Our Public Schools proposal could create this future:
Thomas Jefferson Charter High School
Hillcrest Charter High School
Bryan Adams Charter High School
W. W. Samuell Charter High School
Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Charter Magnet Center
David W. Carter Charter High School
Moises E. Molina Charter High School
Maya Angelou Charter High School
Booker T. Washington Charter High School for the Performing and Visual Arts
All schools will be charter schools (even if the names are not changed).
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Texas Education Code
Section 12.002: Classes Of Charter
The classes of charter under this chapter are:
(1) a home-rule school district charter as provided by Subchapter B;
(2) a campus or campus program charter as provided by Subchapter C; or
(3) an open-enrollment charter as provided by Subchapter D.
Added by Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 260, Sec. 1, eff. May 30, 1995.
