Education Policy Positions
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- Overview
- Public Schooling
- Federal Role in Public Education
- Compulsory Schooling
- School Choice
- Vouchers
- Standardized Testing
- Affirmative Action
- No Child Left Behind Act, ESEA & ESSA
- STAAR Testing
- Charter School "Three Strikes and You're Out" Law
- Charter School Authorizing
- UIL Athletics & Charter Schools
- Released Time Education for Sex Ed. & Religious Instruction
- Social Justice Classrooms
- LGBTQ Students and Athletic Competition
- Richard Rickey
- Charter School Authorizing
Charter School Authorizing
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Citizens that are not happy with their local government run schools should be able to organize and contract with a private, independent charter school authorizer to establish new local school options. This is best provided by private, independent entities and associations established to research student academic achievement gaps by geographical location, and to fill those gaps by authorizing and maintaining new innovative schools to meet those specific local needs. The authorizer needs to be as free as possible of political pressure so they remain unbiased in deciding who is licensed to operate a public charter school, and where they can operate. The authorizer must provide support and on-going training, maintain a data base of academic results that our transparent to the public, establish renewal and revocation criteria, and be held accountable for the results of the charter schools they authorize. Those who should not be authorizers are local traditional school districts, publically funded colleges and universities, a committee or commission of state elected politicians, or a single centralized state government entity. A private sector example doing a great job of improving the quality of charter schools is the Texas Public Charter Schools Association www.txcharterschools.org. While they are not an authorizer (TEA and the State Board of Education authorize), they show what is possible using the private sector instead.