Houston-area charters, traditional public schools post similar accountability scores

Houston’s largest, long-established charter school networks earned high marks under the state’s academic accountability system in 2019, while the region’s smaller and newest charters posted results ranging from perfect scores to failing grades.

Overall, Greater Houston’s 140-plus charters scored fractionally lower than the region’s traditional public schools in the second year of Texas’ A-through-F rating system. The framework rates schools based on raw achievement, student growth, performance relative to economically similar districts and success in closing achievement gaps. Local charter schools averaged an 80 rating, while independent school district campuses averaged an 82.

The 2019 results mirror statewide trends and growing national research that shows, on average, little difference in performance on standardized tests between the two education models. Traditional independent public schools, or ISDs, are governed by elected school boards, while charter schools are run by nonprofits and receive some exemptions from state education laws.

“For a whole lot of kids who come to charter schools from really challenging backgrounds, the results are pretty clear that charters are often providing a better experience,” said Starlee Coleman, CEO of the Texas Charter Schools Association. “Is every charter knocking it out of the park 100 percent of the time in 100 percent of subjects? No. But I would say that’s the same in ISDs.”

In the Houston area, the three most prominent charter organizations — KIPP Texas, YES Prep and Harmony Public Schools, which combine to operate nearly 60 campuses — each scored primarily A and B grades at their campuses, with only one receiving a D rating. The trio of charters enrolled about 37,000 students in 2018-19, the vast majority of them from economically disadvantaged households.

Harmony Public Schools, home to about 11,000 children in the Houston area, led the pack with an average accountability rating of 89 across its 18 campuses. The network operates exclusively in Houston in areas west of Interstate 45 and Highway 288, stretching from Aldine to Sugar Land. It also runs 38 other campuses across Texas.

As Harmony approaches its 20th year in operation, the charter network has solidified its standard model for successfully educating children, producing strong across-the-board scores, CEO Fatih Ay said. Ten Harmony schools earned an A grade, six notched a B and two received Cs.

“Many of the performance indicators that the state is using are the same ones that Harmony has used from its inception to hold itself accountable,” Ay said. “We are well-established over the years and have become very experienced. We’re a unified system across Texas, which allows us to put a system in place that brings quality.”

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YES Prep Public Schools, which enrolled 11,400 Houston-area students at 14 campuses last school year, earned a districtwide score of 89, narrowly missing out on an A rating. All but one of its schools scored an A or B rating, for a campus-level average of 86.

KIPP Texas Public Schools, which is celebrating its 25th year operating in the Houston area, scored an average rating of 85 for its 26 local campuses rated under the accountability system. The network educates about 15,000 students in the Houston area, with another 12,000 enrolled across Texas.

Texas awards ratings to districts and campuses, with many districtwide scores nudging slightly higher than the average of campus-level ratings in a district due to the state's method of calculating grades.

Accountability results were more mixed outside of the area’s three largest operators, with several schools failing to meet state academic standards.

In its first year of operation within Houston ISD’s boundaries, International Leadership of Texas opened its southeast side campus to great fanfare, with about 1,150 elementary and middle school students enrolled in a stately new building on East Orem Drive. Yet IL Texas’ two campuses rated among the worst in Texas, with the elementary school scoring a 45 and the middle school scoring a 48. Only two Texas schools — The Excel Center in Austin and Texas Preparatory School - Austin — received lower than a 45 rating.

IL Texas Superintendent Eddie Conger said district officials expected low performance at the Orem campus this year, given the challenges associated with opening a 1,150-student body campus. He noted that three IL Texas campuses received failing grades after opening in 2017-18, then received C or D grades this year.

“Any time we open up that large — and no other charter does it that way — we bring kids in from kindergarten through eighth grade who come from many different kinds of settings,” Conger said. “The first year is the most difficult year that they’re going to have. But having that year of operation, they’re able to start Day One of the second year at a completely different place.”

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IL Texas’ nine Houston-area campuses earned an average accountability score of 68. While IL Texas grew at the state’s fastest pace in its first five years of operation, enrolling nearly 20,000 students, the network has halted expansion until at least the 2021-22 school year, Conger said.

Another local charter network, The Varnett Public School, also posted low ratings. The 1,700-student district, whose founders were sentenced to prison in 2018 for embezzling $2.6 million from the network, received the region’s only failing grade for districtwide performance. Peter McConnell, the charter’s director of communications, said Varnett officials are appealing the rating to the Texas Education Agency.

“We won’t have any comment until we have the results of the appeal,” McConnell said in a statement.

Nine small charter operators in the Houston area received an A grade for districtwide performance, with Calvin Nelms Charter Schools, Amigos Por Vida - Friends For Life Public Charter School and Alief Montessori Community School earning the highest marks.

jacob.carpenter@chron.com

Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify the difference between districtwide ratings and campus-level ratings under Texas' academic accountability system, and to correct KIPP's average campus-level rating.