Betsy DeVos has awarded more than $200 million to the IDEA charter chain to expand in Texas and beyond. IDEA plans to swamp San Antonio, El Paso, and other cities.

IDEA promises that all students will graduate and go to college, but it doesn’t promise that all students will make it to senior year, or that they will make it in college (earlier studies by Ed Fuller, then at the University of Texas, now at Penn State, found that IDEA graduates had high dropout rates from college).

Read this study of IDEA to learn more.

Texas Charter Schools – Perception May Not Be Real

IDEA Public Schools: Remove the “Rose–Colored Glasses” and Many RED FLAGS Appear

By:  William J. Gumbert

IDEA Public Schools (“IDEA”) is the fastest growing privately-operated charter school in Texas and its rapid expansion in local communities is funded and controlled by “special interests” that desire to “privatize” public education.  With promotions of a “100% College Acceptance Rate” and students being “Accepted to the College or University of Their Choice”, a full-time staff is employed to advocate for IDEA in local communities and to aggressively recruit “economically-disadvantaged” parents dreaming of a better life for their children.

Ann Landers said: “Rose-colored glasses are never made in bifocals.  Nobody wants to read the small print in dreams”.But with the education of children and millions of taxpayer dollars at stake, the small print is vitally important. Part 4 of this 5–part series removes the “rose-colored glasses” that are inherent in the promotions of IDEA Public Schools to provide parents, taxpayers and communities an opportunity to review the potential RED FLAGS that appear when the light is solely focused on the facts of the rapidly expanding, privately-operated charter school.

Overview, Growth, Taxpayer Funding and Financial Benefits: As a privately-operated charter, IDEA has been approved by the State to separately operate in community-based school districts with taxpayer funding.  Since opening with 150 students in 2000, IDEA has been consistentlyfocused on expanding its footprint. In this regard, IDEAstrategic growth plan states it will serve 100,000 students by 2022 as new campuses are opened in Austin, El Paso, Houston, Midland/Odessa, Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, Tarrant County, Louisiana and Florida. At 100,000 students, IDEA would be the 31st largest school system in the United States.

With an appointed board in the Rio Grande Valley, the expansion of IDEA is orchestrated without the involvement of local communities and taxpayers.  IDEA’s growth is solely controlled by its appointed board, the State and its private donors.  With the legislature supporting the expansion of privately-operated charter schools, the State recently approved IDEA to open 21 additional campuses across Texas.

IDEA’s growth has also proven to be lucrative for its leadership team.  As disclosed on its 2017 IRS Form 990, the Chief Executive Officer and Superintendent collectively received financial benefits totaling $968,208 in year 2017/18.  In addition, 8 other IDEA administrators received financial benefits totaling between $219,070 – $466,006.  On average, IDEA’s Central Office administrators have a salary of $200,249, while the statewide average salary for Central Office administrators in all Texas public schools is $102,300.

Other benefits for IDEA’s leadership team include free travel for family members to IDEA events and the potential use of IDEA’s private airplane secured through a long-term lease.  That’s right, a taxpayer-funded “charter” school targeting underserved communities uses a private plane for “charter” flights.

Special Interests are Controlling and Directing IDEA’s Expansion – Not Communities and Taxpayers: As a privately-operated public school, IDEA’s expansion is not subject to the approval of local communities. Rather, IDEA’s expansion is controlled, directed and funded by “special interests” that desire to “privatize” public education.  IDEA’s growth strategy proves this: “new regional expansions are the result of community supported education reform groups soliciting and inviting IDEA to open in their region and concurrently offering substantial startup and operational funding…”.  

As shown below, IDEA has received financial commitments totaling over $150 million from private donors to expand in various regions of the State. It is important to emphasize that these financial commitments are contingent upon IDEA following the criteria specified by the donor (not parents, communities or taxpayers), which includes the opening of a specified number of new IDEA campuses in each region.

IDEA Reduces the Funding of Community-Based School Districts by an Estimated $350 Million Per Year:   IDEA’s expansions are typically promoted with much publicity and fanfare.  But such announcements routinely fail to mention the negative financial impact to local school districts that result from IDEA’s expansion. In this regard, Newton’s Third Law – “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”, applies to education funding. In most cases, there is not any additional funding provided for IDEA to operate in communities as local public education funding is finite. As IDEA enters a community, the available funding must be divided amongst IDEA and the existing community-based school districts.  In other words, the funding provided to IDEA will directly reduce the funding and ability of community-based school districts to simultaneously serve students. At this time, it is estimated that IDEA’s expansion in local communities has reduced the funding of community-based school districts by $350 million per year.

IDEA Has Lower Teacher and Principal Experience and Larger Class Sizes: Most parents likely prefer for their child to attend a school that deploys lower “student to teacher” ratios and smaller class sizes. Parents are also likely to prefer teachers and principals with more experience. But IDEA’s“education model” defies these logical preferences. According to Texas Academic Performance Reports (“TAPR”) published by the Texas Education Agency (“TEA”), IDEA’s average class size in the 3rd grade is 28.9 students or 9.9 more students than the statewide average. In addition, while IDEA publicly advertises that it has “Expert Teachers”, the average experience of IDEA’s teachers is only 1.9 years and 90.9% of IDEA’s teachers have 5 years of experience or less.   In comparison, the average teacher experience for all Texas public schools is significantly higher at 10.9 years.  Teacher turnover has also been historically high at IDEA with 22.1% of teachers leaving each year, which is 33.1% higher than statewide average. 

Maybe IDEA has figured out how to achieve its promoted results with larger class sizes, lower experienced staff and higher teacher turnover.  But if a child was needing to see a doctor, I think most parents would prefer a doctor with 10.9 years of experience, fewer patients and longevity within the community.

IDEA’s Per Student Expenditures for Instruction and Student Services are Significantly Below Statewide Average:  Like a household or a business, the expenditures of a public school can provide insight into the priorities of the school. Once again, IDEA’s unique model defies the norm. In comparison to all Texas public schools, IDEA spends:

IDEA Serves a Lower Percentage of “At Risk”, “Special Education” and “Disciplinary” Students: It is true that IDEA serves primarily “economically-disadvantaged” students.   But every “economically-disadvantaged” student is unique; and some students require more attention and resources. These include students that are categorized by the State as “At Risk” of dropping-out, “Special Education” due to a physical or learning disability and those with a “Disciplinary” history.   

IDEA Has a Small Number of Graduates and an Alarming High School Student Attrition Rate:  While any high school graduate is to be celebrated, the actual number of IDEA graduates remains relatively small for a charter that has been approved by the State to expand to 83,000 students.  Based upon information published by TEA, in years 2015-2017 IDEA only averaged 571 graduates, which is comparable to the number of graduates at Coronado High School in El Paso ISD.   

IDEA’S “100% College Acceptance Rate” is a False and Misleading Promotion:   IDEA’s promoted legacy is that “100% of (Students/Seniors/Graduates) are Accepted to College” and they have even promoted in formal documents that “100% of Graduates are Accepted to the College or University of Their Choice”.  But based upon the facts listed below, these promotions are simply not true and are “materially misleading” to prospective parents, many of which are “economically-disadvantaged”.

IDEA Graduates Have a Lower College Graduation Rate: In recent years, IDEA has attempted to broaden its appeal by promoting its unique model and curriculum is preparing students for success in college.  For example, IDEA’s Student Handbook and IMPACT Magazine that is prepared for students, parents and supporters includes the following statements:

Despite these statements, the college graduation rate of IDEA students is significantly lower than college bound students graduating from community-based school districts in the geographic areas it serves. According to “tpeir – Texas Education Reports”, only 36.9% of IDEA’s 2012 class of 122 students that enrolled in a 4-year Texas college/university had graduated by 2017.  In comparison, the college graduation rate for college-bound students in community-based school districts targeted by IDEA for expansion ranged from a minimum of 50.2% to a high of 84.1%.

IDEA Graduates Have Lower Success During Initial Year of Attending a 4-Year Texas College/University:  There may be many contributing factors for the lower college graduation rate of IDEA students and unfortunately, poverty may be one.However, information published by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board indicates poverty is not the only one.

Of the 467 trackable graduates within IDEA’s class of 2018 that enrolled in a 4-year Texas public college/university, 37% had a GPA below 2.0 and an additional 21% had a GPA below 2.5 in their initial year.  In other words, despite IDEA’s promoted focus on preparing students to succeed in college, 58% of IDEA’s 2018 graduates had a GPA below 2.49 in their initial year of attending a 4-year Texas public college/university.

Closing: As IDEA Public Schools expands in your communityat the direction of privately funded “special interests” and your community relinquishes control of certain schools and taxpayer funding to the privately-operated charter, you deserve to know the facts.

To me, the facts do not support IDEA’s self-proclaimedsuccess as many RED FLAGS appear when the “rose-colored glasses” are removed from IDEA’s promotions.  In addition, the facts are very similar to the circumstances of previousattempts to “privatize” public services that failed to fulfill theirpromises.  In this regard, the factual similarities include the promotion by “special interests”, lower expenditures to deliver public services, fewer public services, deployment of lessexperienced staff, higher administrative costs, employment of full-time promotional staffs and misleading advertisements, targeting of prospective customers, high turnover and the denial of service to certain customers.  

But these are only my thoughts and with the future of children and communities at stake, I encourage you to do a little homework and form your own conclusions.  Afterall, it’s your students, your schools, your tax dollars and your community.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8bMZiGFYbRFTjZfYm5ZVnZFVmlFZUw4ZWRhOFYyZWFXaENJ/view