Texas Already Gives Public Ed Dollars to Private Operators. Here's How That Worked Out.

Texas Already Gives Public Ed Dollars to Private Operators. Here's How That Worked Out.

At an April 2017 committee hearing in a meeting room tucked away in the Capitol’s underground extension, state Senator Paul Bettencourt, a bespectacled Houston Republican, touted a proposal of his then called Senate Bill 1882.  The bill was meant to “turn around” public schools the state had deemed failing by tapping nonprofit charter school operators to take over and implement “innovative practices,” Bettencourt promised. The new system would b…