{"id":38217,"date":"2025-11-06T15:26:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T15:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/38217\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T15:26:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T15:26:11","slug":"houstons-top-magnet-high-schools-could-become-private-partnership-charter-schools-raising-equity-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/38217\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston’s Top Magnet High Schools Could Become Private Partnership Charter Schools, Raising Equity Concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each year, thousands of students apply for a seat at one of the top performing magnet high schools in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) through an open-enrollment lottery system<\/a>. Regardless of their background, all district applicants have the same chance of being admitted to these elite schools if they meet the criteria for their specialized programs, including Houston\u2019s storied Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA).<\/p>\n

But that opportunity could end under a proposal to turn seven of Houston ISD\u2019s top public high schools into private partnerships under Senate Bill 1882<\/a>\u2014a state law that offers districts incentives to hand over public school campuses to private operators, including nonprofits, charter school operators, or higher education institutions.<\/p>\n

On October 31, HISD announced that four of the district\u2019s top performing magnet high schools\u2014Challenge Early College High School, Energy Institute High School, Houston Academy for International Studies, and HSPVA\u2014are moving forward with the district\u2019s offer for \u201cexpanded flexibility and innovation opportunities\u201d by creating a SB 1882 partnership by the 2026-27 school year. Three other top-performing magnet high schools\u2014Carnegie Vanguard High School, DeBakey High School for Health Professions, and Eastwood Academy\u2014are still evaluating the possibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n

District spokesperson Lana Hill told the Texas Observer that these schools may not be required to participate in the lottery system. They \u201care going to be able to make their own decisions,\u201d she said. \u201cIf one school chooses to do one thing, that doesn\u2019t mean that another school has to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That has parents and teachers concerned that the district\u2019s top schools will not be equally accessible to all students. Jackie Anderson, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, told the Observer that she worries these operators will \u201cpick and choose students\u201d to enroll like private schools and other charters. Anderson added the teachers union is against \u201cany type of inequities that this may cause for our students.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Historically, Houston ISD\u2019s magnet school program began as an effort to desegregate the district<\/a> in 1975. Still, critics have long complained<\/a> that there were already more hurdles for students of color from lower-income neighborhoods to enter the top magnet schools.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Under ex-superintendent Terry Grier, who ran Houston ISD from 2009 to 2016, the district created a single lottery system for students to apply to the district\u2019s more than 100 magnets. Prior to this, each administered their own admissions. \u201cWe\u2019re allowing principals to decide who gets in and who doesn\u2019t. We accuse some of our charters of skimming. Well frankly, we\u2019re doing some of the same things,\u201d Grier said<\/a> at a 2010 district board meeting.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Millard House II, who served as superintendent until the state took over HISD in 2023 and replaced him, expanded efforts to inform parents about the magnet program and lengthened the application period so that more students would apply.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a><\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

SB 1882 partnerships offer greater autonomy for the operators to control the magnet schools\u2019 curriculum, operations, and budgets\u2014freeing them from some of the mandates instituted since 2023 under state-appointed superintendent Mike Miles. But, as the Observer previously reported<\/a>, these partnerships\u2014including schools run by the nonprofit that Miles formerly led<\/a>\u2014fall under a law for in-district charter schools<\/a> that contains far fewer financial and academic guardrails than apply to other charters or public schools. And many previous partnerships have run into academic and financial issues.<\/p>\n

This concerns parents like Crystal Toussant, whose daughter attends HSPVA. She told the Observer that, in the past, she has been able to resolve some complaints with the school through the district. She worries that \u201cIf you\u2019re an individual entity, the accountability may end with the principal,\u201d Toussant said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These private partnerships are largely governed by individual contracts between districts and operators. Districts then apply to TEA for the state financial and accountability benefits created by SB 1882; TEA\u2019s website<\/a> states that districts must submit a letter of intent for these applications by December 6. Hill told the Observer that the district \u201cwill continue working with principals and nonprofit partners to define the specific terms of each school\u2019s performance contract\u201d and that it plans to submit the contracts to the district board of managers for a vote during a public meeting next spring.<\/p>\n

The Energy Institute High School and HSPVA already have affiliated nonprofits that could serve as the schools\u2019 operating partners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Hill, district leaders have not decided how they would spend the extra funding SB 1882 partnership schools could bring. Current employees at the magnet schools, she said, apart from the school principal, would not be employees of the private operator but remain district employees with the same rights and benefits.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Campus leaders at the seven schools are \u201cabsolutely not\u201d required to enter into SB 1882 partnerships, and their schools would remain magnets if they chose not to participate, Hill said.<\/p>\n

Ahead of a PTO meeting at the DeBakey High School for Health Professions next week, parent Lorri White said she plans to ask school leaders to take time to discuss the proposal with their schools\u2019 stakeholders and to ask key questions. For her, this includes, \u201cAre we rushing to do this? Is this going to be properly considered? How do we know if we\u2019ve selected the right partner or if we\u2019re just selling off our schools?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each year, thousands of students apply for a seat at one of the top performing magnet high schools…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[19876,56,58,57,2824,13504],"class_list":{"0":"post-38217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-hisd-takeover","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-headlines","11":"tag-houston-news","12":"tag-mike-miles","13":"tag-sb-1882"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38217","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=38217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}