Michael Williams, Texas State Commissioner, gave Great Hearts Academy permission to open another charter in Dallas even though the state board of education tuned it down. Williams is not an educator. He is a favorite of the Bush family who previously served as head of the Texas Railroad Commission, which “regulates” the oil and gas industry (not?).
Great Hearts is controversial because it has campuses that have little or no diversity, it does not provide transportation, and it charges substantial fees to parents. It was repeatedly rejected in Nashville for its lack of diversity plans.
In Arizona, the charter chain was criticized by the Arizona Republic for buying nearly $1 million in books from a board member.
“”I certainly think it flies in the face of legislative intent,” said Thomas Ratliff, a Republican SBOE member from Mount Pleasant, of Williams’ decision. “Republicans are critical of this president for doing executive orders around an elected Congress, and it looks like Michael Williams decided that playbook looks OK.”
“Critics have pointed to the disproportionately white and affluent student body of Great Hearts’ campuses in the Phoenix area as evidence that those practices keep low-income students out of the school. In Phoeniz, nearly 60 percent of public school students are Hispanic or black, 69 percent of the nearly 7,000 students are white. Only two of Great Hearts’ 16 Arizona campuses participate in a federal program that offers free and reduced-price meals for low-income students. That concern led the Nashville school district to deny Great Hearts’ charter application last year because of what one official described as “serious and persistent questions about their definitions of excellence, and reliance on selectivity and mission fit for success.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How terribly sad that Williams chose to do this on the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, effectively creating another segregated private school for affluent white children whose parents do not want them educated alongside poor children of color.
A half-century of systematic attacks and now we see the success of the racist citizens who vowed to end desegregation one way or another. And who would have thought they would succeed on such a large scale under the auspices of a democratic president, the first president of color, and his secretary of education, and all under the false flag operation using the looking-glass term of “the civil rights issue of our time” ?!
I recall reading somewhere that Jeb Bush was in financial difficulty about the time he became involved with education reform. If so could education reform be Bush’s financial salvation? I know it sounds a bit strange considering the wealth of the Bush clan.
Jeb Bush has indeed found his place at the Texas Educational Industrial trough along with Commissioner Michael Williams and Bill Hammond, who controls the flood gate of lobbying corruption in the state.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education and commented:
Wow…what is the point of a review board?