The Texas Senate Education Committee bowed to the wishes of the powerful charter lobby and granted sole power to the State Commissioner (appointed by the Governor) to approve charter schools. His decisions can be vetoed only by a supermajority of the State Board of Education.
The State Commissioner of Education is Mike Morath. He is not an educator. He is a software executive who served on the Dallas school board and advocated for charter schools.
Local elected authorities—including mayors and school boards—are prohibited from blocking a charter school that wants to open in its jurisdiction. Charters can locate wherever they choose without regard to the views of local communities that want to protect their own public schools from rapacious charters.
Right now, Texas is being overrun by corporate charter chains aiming to grab market share. This bill will help them by canceling democracy and the will of the people.
This is the bill that passed the committee.
CSSB 28 (Bettencourt), as substituted, increases the threshold – from a majority to a supermajority – required for a State Board of Education veto of a charter awarded by the commissioner and defines reasons why the SBOE may veto a charter. It also prohibits a local governmental entity from enacting or enforcing an ordinance, order, regulation, resolution, rule, or policy or taking action that prohibits an open-enrollment charter school from operating a public school campus, educational support facility, or administrative office in its jurisdiction.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“and granted sole power to the State Commissioner (appointed by the Governor) to approve charter schools”
Well. That’s very “grass roots” and “bottom up”, I must say.
It’s amusing that this “movement” is wholly owned by the Waltons and they’re knocking out the local competition to put in national chains.
As the charter lobby gets bigger and bigger with tens of thousands of people employed full time in marketing, promoting, employed by and lobbying or charters are we still planning on pretending that only people who work for public schools are “self interested”?
Are charter promoters- people employed by the industry- also “self interested” or does that smear only apply to people who belong to labor unions?
Just trying to find some logical coherence in ed reform dogma. The slogans are not making a whole lot of sense.
When charter advocates lobby lawmakers for more funding and power, it’s “for the children”
When public school advocates lobby lawmakers it’s “self interest”
Under this nonsensical ed reform “logic” students who attend public schools may not have advocates. That’s forbidden. The only “pure” advocates are those who lobby for the schools ed reformers prefer – charters and private schools.
Chiara, in Texas the legislature is considering a bill to prohibit lobbying for public schools. Lobbying for charters and vouchers is ok, however.
Another poorly planned ed reform rush job:
“The bill to modify the state funding formula directs that funding will be calculated based on student counts from the previous year, rather than the highest of the previous two years, among other things. Supporters say the change will allow state funding to more quickly follow students when they move districts.
Critics, including Republican State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister, said the change would particularly harm rural schools, where district enrollment can fluctuate dramatically based on economic factors.
“This bill removes financial safeguards meant to protect all students from the impact of abrupt changes in the local economy,” Hofmeister said in a statement. “Kids will lose when schools are forced to make sudden cuts in essential services and opportunities which provide access to a well-rounded education.”
It’s all designed around the demands from charters and voucher schools. They didn’t consider the effects on public schools or public school students because they don’t care what happens to those schools and students. The ed reform economic/ideological dogma dictates that “funding follows the student” and the dogma must be followed, no matter how many public school students are harmed while they transition to a privatized system.
The charter lobby is invading Texas. They see lots of opportunity to scoop up monetized black and brown students in the cities and place them in separate and unequal schools.
Morath has failed to provide oversight of billions in special education and state compensatory education funds which have been supplanted on Title 1 campuses in place of local tax funds. These practices are violations of state and federal laws. Morath was confronted by Dallas reporter Brett Ship in 2015 when Morath was a Dallas Trustee. The financial shell games that allow profiteering off poor kids are in the book available on Amazon—“What Would LBJ Think?” Dallas ISD is still fully engaged in looting Title 1 schools because did’t stop the lucrative protocols.
So much for the vaunted GOP position on “local control,” “state’s rights,” etc.
We live in a democracy, not an oligarchy. April Fools.
https://www.idahoednews.org/voices/idaho-should-not-support-private-schools/
Posted at Oped News. https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Texas-Senate-Education-Co-in-General_News-Corporate-Corruption-Crime_Corruption_Diane-Ravitch_Education-210404-688.html