Texas charter schools recently saw their smallest enrollment bump in state history, signaling that similar forces crushing traditional public districts may soon hit them as well.<\/p>\n
Students have enrolled in charters at significant rates since they launched in the state three decades ago \u2014 even as traditional public school enrollment started to fall. But with birth rates going down, new schooling options popping up and fears regarding immigration enforcement spreading, experts say that growth may soon reverse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re headed to a cliff, for sure,\u201d said Bob Templeton, a senior consultant with an Austin-based public policy firm called STRIVE. He has studied Texas school demographics since the 1990s. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s going to be next year, but it could definitely be within five years.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year, Texas public schools experienced their first non-pandemic enrollment decline<\/a> in nearly 40 years. The drop of more than 76,000 students, mostly Hispanic children, occurred primarily in traditional neighborhood campuses. <\/p>\n But charters \u2014 public schools managed independently by nonprofits and private companies \u2014 continued growing their enrollment. The number of students in state-approved charters increased every year since the Legislature authorized them in 1995. <\/p>\n Charters now educate roughly 446,600 \u2014 or 8% \u2014 of Texas\u2019 nearly 5.5 million public school students. <\/p>\n Texas\u2019 178 charter operators oversee 935 campuses, according to a recent report<\/a> from the state education agency \u2014 up from 629 campuses<\/a> about a decade ago. Significant growth in the number of charters, coupled with families searching for schools tailored to their children\u2019s educational needs, largely contributed to the enrollment uptick over the last 30 years. <\/p>\n Parents, for example, have grown tired of schools\u2019 emphasis on standardized testing, the overuse of technology and the time kids spend indoors, said Inga Cotton, founder and executive director of the School Discovery Network, a San Antonio-based group helping parents access improved educational options for their children.<\/p>\n \u201cFamilies feel under pressure from the world changing so fast,\u201d Cotton added. \u201cIf humans are looking for alternatives, then what systems are going to best be able to present those options for families? And charters have been really good at that.\u201d <\/p>\n But the uptick has slowed. State data shows that year-to-year growth in charter enrollment over the past three decades ranged from 3.1% to a high of 217%. However, that growth dropped to 2.4%<\/a> this year, according to nonprofit group Texas 2036.<\/p>\n That in turn affects every component of education because Texas funds schools based on how many kids show up to class.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is an adult-centered issue that adults really need to figure out. It shouldn\u2019t have to impact the students. Sadly, it does,\u201d said Axinia Zepeda, principal of the Raul Yzaguirre Schools for Success Early Childhood Academy, a Houston-based charter school. \u201cJust knowing that enrollment is going to impact funding, funding is going to impact resources, resources are going to impact the instruction that\u2019s being given.\u201d<\/p>\n To stay ahead of enrollment shortfalls, Zepeda\u2019s campus recently expanded from offering only pre-K and kindergarten to adding first grade. The school plans to teach second grade in the near future, she said. It also started offering child care services to families willing to pay tuition. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of us having to hit the streets and do a lot of recruitment, setting up tables at fairs \u2014 at school choice fairs \u2014 going to neighborhood libraries or local restaurants and asking if they can put our flyers out,\u201d Zepeda said. \u201cWe\u2019re having to hit the streets and try to figure out how we can get kids in.\u201d <\/p>\n Although Texas\u2019 population continues to grow<\/a>, families are having fewer children. That means fewer kids entering school. The state\u2019s growing immigrant population that helped schools overcome the birth rate decline has decelerated too. Educators have said some of their students stopped showing up to classes out of fear that immigration officers will show up to arrest them. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was the changes in immigration enforcement that caused the enrollment to turn the way that it turned this year, especially as it relates to the Hispanic community,\u201d said Templeton, the education demographics expert. <\/p>\n Expanded school choice options also played a significant part in enrollment decline, Templeton said, more than factors like birth rates.<\/p>\n Public education advocates have long criticized charters<\/a> for flooding urban communities with new schooling options that already exist on traditional neighborhood campuses, contributing to districts\u2019 enrollment drops. But now both school districts and charters are seeing families choose another part of the education ecosystem: home schooling. <\/p>\n The Texas Home School Coalition estimates that more than 750,000 students<\/a> receive instruction in their households, far outpacing enrollment in charter schools. Home-school enrollment has skyrocketed in the years since the pandemic, a nod to families\u2019 frustration<\/a> with public schools and desire to personalize their children\u2019s learning experience. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, the state is launching a voucher program that allows families to use public funding for private schools and home schools, which could mean more students leaving public options. <\/p>\n The overwhelming majority of students will continue with public education. Still, if families opt in to the new education savings accounts, that means less money for every child absent \u2014 a challenge that educators say will only grow worse without consistent and reliable funding increases from the Legislature.<\/p>\n At Por Vida Academy at Corpus Christi, 28 students just earned their high school diploma from the college prep charter campus. Principal Sandra Valencia hopes that the school\u2019s recruiting phone calls, TV advertisements and meetings with parents will help the campus recoup the more than two dozen kids who graduated.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing that affects me the most is trying to stay competitive,\u201d Valencia said. \u201cThat\u2019s important, because if they can\u2019t get from you what they can get at the ISD, well then what\u2019s the reason really for them to come to you?\u201d<\/p>\n The state exempts the privately run charters from many of the laws and policies districts must follow, with charters\u2019 approval contingent upon whether such campuses offer specialized instruction \u2014 from project-based learning to STEM programs \u2014 that families cannot easily access at a traditional neighborhood school. <\/p>\n Texas charter schools reported late last year having nearly 70,000 students<\/a> on a waitlist, according to the Texas Education Agency. <\/p>\n Brian Whitley, vice president of communications for the Texas Public Charter Schools Association, notes that campuses have slightly fewer students on the waitlist than in recent years. Still, he views the current data as an indicator of \u201cstrong parent demand.\u201d<\/p>\n Some public education advocates hope traditional neighborhood campuses and charters work together to identify solutions to the enrollment challenges \u2014 either through convening to share ideas or partnering to provide innovative academic programming for kids. <\/p>\n \u201cInstitutions need to be able to be willing to innovate and grow,\u201d said Marisa B. P\u00e9rez-D\u00edaz, a San Antonio Democrat who serves on the Texas State Board of Education, which votes on whether to approve charter applications. <\/p>\n \u201cBecause if not,\u201d she added, \u201cwe\u2019re gonna get left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n Disclosure: Texas 2036 and Texas Public Charter Schools Association have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas charter schools recently saw their smallest enrollment bump in state history, signaling that similar forces crushing traditional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,7394,287,25702,1563,4379,118128,48077,2810,293,11362,6473],"class_list":["post-330635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-charter-schools","tag-politics","tag-population-growth","tag-public-education","tag-school-choice","tag-texas-charter-school-association","tag-texas-education","tag-texas-education-agency","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-public-schools","tag-well-a-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}