State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, wants changes in how charter applications are screened and approved in Texas. For instance, he’d like a national group of charter school authorizers to train Texas Education Agency staff who oversee applications and state board members who review them. He said he’d also like to look for best practices Texas could adopt.
Patrick said such ideas would be part of a charter school bill he plans to file.
“Texas Education Agency works to improve scrutiny of charter school applications”, Holly K. Hacker, Dallas Morning News, February 09, 2013.
The Texas Education Agency is also looking at changing how it selects and trains charter application reviewers. Last year, several applications contained text plagiarized from other applications. “Four Texas charter school proposals contain copied passages”, Holly K. Hacker, Dallas Morning News, February 09, 2013; my earlier post about last year’s applications.
