A member of the FWSchools.org community at Lily B. Clayton Elementary recently asked us two great questions that we wanted to answer and share with everyone.

So let’s get into it.

To answer this question we will start with SB 1882. Senate Bill 1882¹ is a bill that was passed by the Texas Legislature and became law in 2017. When the law was conceived it was originally focused on creating the legal pathway for a school district to partner with a charter school to operate a campus. Before this law, charters were allowed and school districts were allowed but they were not legally allowed to partner and work together. In the years since the legal pathway was opened Texas Partnerships have matured into robust tools for improving school choice and local governance.

In a Texas Partnership, a school district authorizes an in-district school to partner in the operation of the school.

There are two kinds of partnership schools, one on each side of accountability spectrum.

There are two benefits in the Texas Partnership program, one for each School Partnership type.

There are two types of possible operating partners:

First, I think its important to recognize that there are two paths to a Texas Partnership - Turnaround; and Innovation.

In the context of Turnaround Partnership, it is our opinion that a Texas Partnership does not increase local control. In fact, it does the opposite in an act of exercising local control and maintaining academic accountability.

We can see numerous examples of Turnaround Partnerships locally in Forest Oak Middle, Como Elementary, Logan Elementary, White Elementary, Boulevard Elementary, and Leonard Middle Schools that are partnered and run by the Texas Wesleyan Leadership Academy Network³². Additionally, we can see it taking place in Waco currently as well. But again, it’s important to note that a Turnaround Partnership is an exercise of local control to avoid painful state intervention after years of unacceptable campus accountability ratings.

The critical context here is that Turnaround Partnerships are used by school districts to AVOID a TEA takeover.

An Innovation Partnership on the other hand is a tool to increase and regain local control, at a campus level.

So in a situation where a school district has been taken over by the State, like in Fort Worth, and parents are no longer able to drive innovation and results locally because of the different relationships with appointed versus elected managers. Then, an Innovation Partnership is one of the best and only tools that partners have to drive results and superior outcomes in their schools.

For a great example of this we can look at Houston ISD and the collection of world-class magnet high schools they have. All were recently threatened to lose critical resources as part of wide-spread cuts by the Houston ISD Board of Managers⁶. To address this threat and maintain the capability to achieve these exceptional, world-class outcomes the schools leveraged Innovation Partnerships⁴⁵.