The New York Times has an amazing story by Michael Powell on the first page of Sunday’s sports section. Football star Deion Sanders won approval from the Texas Board of Education to open a charter school called Prime Prep Academy (Sanders’ nickname is Prime Time.) In no time at all, Sanders built a powerhouse of a sports academy. The school has a top-ranked basketball team, whose games are broadcast on ESPN, and presumably a super football team. This is a training school for aspiring athletes.

But it is not much as a school. According to Powell, “a respected Texas nonprofit group” that ranks schools gave the lower grades of the school an F, but did not grade the high school due to missing data. Powell says that Prime Prep represents “celebrity culture run amok and shoddy oversight of a charter school.” Parents send their sons there in hopes they might become professional athletes. Powell tells stories of school officials who were threatened by Sanders. The executive director of the school twice fired him but was overruled by the board. She is now the former executive director.

The Texas Education Agency is threatening to revoke the charter because the school cannot prove it used lunch money for meals. But, says Powell, Sanders is a close friend of the state Commissioner of Education, so don’t count on sanctions.

The former executive director said to Powell, “The high school was chaos. Academics didn’t even play second fiddle. It was all about getting those athletes scholarships and contracts. You didn’t mess with Deion World.” Powell waded through Prime Prep’s application for a charter and found it chock-full of jargon. A member of the state board told Powell that the board was awed to be in Sanders’ presence and fawned on him. But “the curriculum design was nonexistent.”

You can understand the allure of enrolling in a charter school that might propel you into pro sports. The teams are really good. The academic side seems to be a shambles, certainly not a priority. Most of the students are unlikely to break into professional sports. What will happen to them?

Is this the kind of innovation that America needs to compete in the global economy?

Without explanation, Rocketship Charters withdrew its application to open 8 schools each in San Antonio and Dallas.

A group of wealthy philanthropists has put up a large fund to draw charter chains to San Antonio, with a goal of 80,000 students in charters by 2026.

Once a charter has opened in Texas, it can expand without going through the entire application process by merely submitting an amendment to their original application.

Rocketship will not be considered in this cycle.

There has been speculation that Rocketship is slowing its expansion while it retools its program, but officials said that the chain intended to focus on four regions: California, Milwaukee, Nashville, and D.C.

The chain is slowing plans not only in Texas, but in Memphis and New Orleans. It hopes to grow from 9 to 20 schools in the next few years.

Texas State Commissioner Michael Williams overrode the veto of the state board of education to bring Arizona-based Great Hearts Academy to Texas. The state board thought they could veto the commissioner’s choices. But, well, it didn’t work that way, especially after Great Hearts hired Governor Rick Perry’s former chief of staff as its lobbyist.

Williams was impressed by Great Hearts’ excellent test scores and frankly didn’t care that most of its charters are located in white, affluent neighborhoods, and that its schools did not enroll any English language learners. Williams said that no one should hold against them the fact that most of their students are white and not poor.

“Williams’ decision has been so contentious not only because of the procedural issues, but because education leaders question whether Great Hearts—a chain of 19 schools in the Phoenix area (as of this fall), all but one of them in the suburbs outside the city—can replicate its program for Texas students.

“Great Hearts advertises SAT scores hundreds of points above the national average, glowing college attendance rates and an “A” rating from the state for most of its schools. Williams told the board this morning that Great Hearts’ track record suggested they clearly fit the bill for a “high performing” network. But critics—like those who rallied to keep the chain from expanding into Nashville—say Great Hearts gets those results because its student body reflects the white, affluent neighborhoods where it opens. None of Great Hearts Arizona’s 7,617 students are classified as “English language learners,” according to the Arizona Department of Education, and just two of its schools have any students on free or reduced lunches—a common shorthand measure of student poverty.
Roberto Gutierrez, who leads Great Hearts’ nationwide growth efforts, said in a statement that they’re committed to serving a diverse student body in Texas. “Our first campus in central San Antonio is in a neighborhood that is more than 61% Hispanic/Latino,” Gutierrez wrote. Great Hearts’ school in that city is set to open this fall on two campuses in the Monte Vista neighborhood near Trinity University. “The Dallas and Irving neighborhoods we seek to serve are also diverse, urban communities full of parents and students who support these new public school offerings for excellence.” They’re still looking for a campus in Old East Dallas, Oak Cliff or downtown Dallas.

“Speaking to the board this morning, Williams allowed that in Arizona, “the bulk of [Great Hearts’ students] are white and probably not poor.” But he said it’s wrong to hold that against them. “There is nothing in Texas law, and nothing in the public policy of this state, that says that one cannot have a charter, or an expansion amendment, that serves kids who are not poor and who are not minority. Quite frankly, I think the latter part would be against the law. … State law doesn’t say that you can only have charters for brown, poor and black kids.”