Well-heeled S.A. effort aims for more charter schools — lots more

Students in Jennifer Ortegon's fifth grade science class time the release of air from a baloon experiment as KIPP Camino Academy conducts classes on October 17, 2012. Students in Jennifer Ortegon's fifth grade science class time the release of air from a baloon experiment as KIPP Camino Academy conducts classes on October 17, 2012. Photo: Tom Reel, San Antonio Express-News Photo: Tom Reel, San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Well-heeled S.A. effort aims for more charter schools — lots more 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

A coalition of San Antonio philanthropists is throwing its support — including a lot of money — behind an elite group of charter school operators that could someday educate nearly one in four area students.

Some see that as a threat to traditional public school education. Backers hope that offering more choice to families will translate into better academic outcomes all around.

Charter schools often rely on private donations, especially to start up in a new city, but Texas Charter Schools Association executive director David Dunn said he has never seen a group of Texas philanthropic heavyweights court so many charter operators so aggressively.

The Choose to Succeed effort, spearheaded by George W. Brackenridge Foundation trustee Victoria Rico, aims to bring four out-of-state charter management organizations, or CMOs, to San Antonio within the next couple of years. Combined with the KIPP and IDEA Public Schools — which already have San Antonio schools and receive Choose to Succeed support — the six could serve about 80,000 local students by 2026 at as many as 145 campuses, or more than 20 percent of current Bexar County school enrollment.

Charter schools are public schools operating under a contract or “charter” with the state, freeing them from some of the rules and regulations that traditional public schools face. Last year, about 50 charter schools not affiliated with public school districts operated in Bexar County, enrolling about 14,000 students.

The six charter organizations that Choose to Succeed is courting — BASIS Schools, Carpe Diem Schools, Great Hearts Academies, IDEA Public Schools, KIPP and Rocketship Education — are widely considered among the best in the nation, with impressive test scores and high rates of graduates going on to college.

Cultivating their growth in San Antonio would require more than $50 million in local donations, about $24 million of which has already been raised thanks to hefty pledges from Harvey Najim and his foundation, the Ewing Halsell Foundation, Graham Weston's 80/20 Foundation and others. Cheering them on are former mayors Henry Cisneros and Phil Hardberger.

For charter school opponents, it's a nightmare scenario.

The new schools would siphon students — and therefore funding — from traditional school districts, they argue, and the charters' good track records and tuition-free status might also draw private school families, putting a greater burden on public funds.

But for Rico, it's a no-brainer: She sees the plan as a fast, inexpensive way to get “high quality seats” for students.

For instance, IDEA needs a one-time infusion of $1,500 in local private funding per child to get a school up and running before being fully sustained by public money, Rico said. Supporting a well-regarded mentoring organization also comes in at $1,500 per child, she said, but it will be back year after year. The Brackenridge Foundation — a 90-year-old organization whose namesake once headed the San Antonio School Board — has pledged more than $6 million so far. It will support some other causes, but the charter push will be its focus for many years, Rico said.

“San Antonio philanthropists have been pumping millions and millions of dollars into public schools and nothing's changed,” she said.

Hardberger, who as mayor knocked on doors urging dropouts to return to high school, said he does not view traditional public schools as failures but that too many students still drop out and too few graduates are prepared for college.

Not all charter schools are better, he said, but it's worth trying out the top performers, and the public schools “may learn something from that experiment.”

Backers say charter competition with traditional public schools is good for all involved.

“What happens when you lose your customers in business is you look at your business practices and you try to change them to get your customers back.” said Najim, executive chairman of Sirius Computer Solutions, who also donates to traditional public school programs. “I think this will force the public schools to make their curriculum and their instruction stronger.”

Sylvester Perez, interim superintendent of San Antonio Independent School District, said he's unfazed by the potential for more competition. SAISD enrollment has held relatively steady for the past few years, and the number of students living in the district but enrolled elsewhere is declining, he noted.

“We're offering the same things, if not more, than any charter schools outside our district will offer,” Perez said.

But Shelley Potter, president of the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel, raised concerns about outside entities “that don't know our kids, don't know our parents, don't know our community” opening schools here.

Clay Robison, spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association, stopped short of calling Choose to Succeed a bad idea, but he said charters are no silver bullet.

Most students will still be in traditional public schools, so urging state lawmakers to restore education funding slashed in 2011 “would have a lot more long-term benefit to the children in San Antonio,” he said.

Though this may be the largest ever in Texas, alliances between charter schools and philanthropists aren't new. Charters get no public funding for facilities, but donations allow many of them to spend more per pupil than other public schools, research has found.

The State Board of Education will vote next month on applications from Great Hearts and BASIS, which could open their first San Antonio schools next year if granted. (A third San Antonio applicant, Ben Yehuda Academy, is not a part of the Choose to Succeed program.)

Rocketship and Carpe Diem plan to apply later and could open schools here by 2014.

But even with financial backing and charters in place, replicating high-performing schools is no simple task, said Thomas Toch, senior managing partner at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teachers, who has studied the difficulties of finding good staff, transplanting an effective school culture and adapting to different state funding formulas.

“More broadly, there is no guarantee — as they say in the financial disclosures — that past performance is a promise of future profits,” he said.

To add new schools without losing focus, Toch said, CMOs should have leaders on the ground who make sure new hires buy into their model, whatever it may be.

Tapping the elite

Such challenges weren't brought up at a reception this month for Choose to Succeed CMOs and supporters. Attendees heard more than a dozen speakers in the chapel at the Southwest School of Art.

The chance to foster a half-dozen well-regarded CMOs puts San Antonio “in a very unique and enviable position that a lot of other cities would like to be in,” said Dan Fishman, director of K-12 education programs for the pro-charter Philanthropy Roundtable.

The room oozed money, a point Rico's husband Martin made when he announced that the software company he owns had pledged $50,000 and challenged others to pledge, too, noting that some there could raise him by a factor of 100.

Notably absent was H-E-B Chairman Charles Butt, a billionaire well-known for his education philanthropy, the catalyst in bringing Teach for America here two years ago and the co-chair of the task force that spurred Mayor Julian Castro's Pre-K 4 SA initiative.

His office said he was unavailable to comment on the Choose to Succeed initiative.

“H-E-B's primary area of focus remains on improving and investing in our teachers and our Texas Public Schools,” company spokeswoman Dya Campos said in an e-mail.

Others, however, are eager to help. Though charter schools are often considered a pet project of conservative Republicans, Hardberger is joined by Cisneros, a fellow Democrat, in supporting the local effort.

“I'm first and foremost a believer in the importance of our public schools,” Cisneros said. “But I do think charters are one additional option for reaching more children and for showing alternative delivery systems.”

The Ewing Halsell Foundation has devoted $16 million, or 25 percent of its budget, to the effort, including a $10 million pledge to IDEA.

Mark Larson, chief executive officer of KIPP-San Antonio praised the plan, though the additional schools could compete with his for students and donations. He even helped steer Rico toward other CMOs.

Larson wants to grow his district by 7,000 classroom seats but said that won't be enough to alter the area's education landscape.

“And so if they can come in and be part of the solution ... then I welcome them,” he said.