“Don’t Believe the Hype” Pt. II: Charter Schools and College Readiness for Blacks

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig 5 comments

At the 2012 Texas Heroes NAACP Banquet — with Yannis Banks and State Rep. Sylvester Turner.

Last week I conducted a quick analysis of Majority Latina/o High Schools in Texas to understand what high schools in the state had a majority (more than 50%) of their Latina/o students college-ready (defined as scoring a 2200 on both Math and Reading) according to high-stakes Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) exit testing. I concluded that only 8 of the 64 majority Latina/o high schools with 50% or more college-ready were charters. At the recent 2012 NAACP conference in Corpus Christi I was asked how the same analysis would look for African Americans. The first issue I ran into was that there are no high schools in the Lone Star State that are majority African American and have more than 50% college-ready— which in an of itself is a finding. So I lowered the bar on college-readiness from 50% to 30%. At that level, only 7 high schools in the state are majority African American with more than 30% being college ready on both Reading and Math. None of the 7 schools are charters.

	Campus Name	County Name	Charter	%CR
1	THURGOOD MARSHALL H S	FORT BEND	N	43
2	LA MARQUE H S	GALVESTON	N	38
3	DAVID W CARTER HIGH SCHOOL	DALLAS	N	36
4	KASHMERE H S	HARRIS	N	36
5	YATES H S	HARRIS	N	33
6	DESOTO H S	DALLAS	N	33
7	CEDAR HILL H S	DALLAS	N	32
Total N	7	7	7	7

The logical question arises, what high schools in the state have 50% of African Americans tested college-ready? Are charters represented in this group? For this analysis I set the percentage of African Americans in the school at 12% or more based on the 2010 U.S. Census estimation of 11.8% African Americans in the state of Texas. Using the 12% population level, there are 30 high schools in the state of Texas where more than 50% of the African American students are college ready. Of those, only 1 of the high schools is a charter, KIPP Houston. For extensive discussion about KIPP Houston on this blog, go here.

	Campus Name	County Name	Charter	% CR	% AA
1	DEBAKEY H S FOR HEALTH PROF	HARRIS	N	98	16
2	SCHOOL FOR THE TALENTED AND GIFTED	DALLAS	N	93	12
3	MIDDLE COLLEGE H S	DALLAS	N	89	12
4	CARNEGIE VANGUARD H S	HARRIS	N	88	13
5	ITASCA H S	HILL	N	83	11
6	QUEST H S	HARRIS	N	80	13
7	JUDGE BAREFOOT SANDERS LAW MAGNET	DALLAS	N	76	14
8	KIPP HOUSTON H S	HARRIS	Y	75	2
9	SCHOOL OF HEALTH PROFESSIONS	DALLAS	N	74	22
10	PERFOR & VIS ARTS H S	HARRIS	N	74	12
11	STEPHEN F AUSTIN H S	FORT BEND	N	69	15
12	ROSIE SORRELLS EDUCATION AND SOCIA	DALLAS	N	68	25
13	SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT	DALLAS	N	67	16
14	EASTSIDE MEMORIAL GREEN TECH H S	TRAVIS	N	60	4
15	TRINIDAD GARZA EARLY COLLEGE H S A	DALLAS	N	60	7
16	GIDDINGS H S	LEE	N	60	9
17	ROWLETT H S	DALLAS	N	58	12
18	FRISCO H S	COLLIN	N	57	10
19	EMPOWERMENT COLLEGE PREP H S	HARRIS	N	56	.
20	BELLAIRE H S	HARRIS	N	56	13
21	CHALLENGE EARLY COLLEGE H S	HARRIS	N	55	16
22	MANSFIELD SUMMIT H S	TARRANT	N	55	19
23	BOOKER T WASHINGTON SPVA MAGNET	DALLAS	N	55	12
24	KEMPNER H S	FORT BEND	N	55	8
25	LAW ENFCMT-CRIM JUST H S	HARRIS	N	54	16
26	CARVER H S FOR APPLIED TECH/ENGINE	HARRIS	N	52	31
27	STAFFORD H S	FORT BEND	N	52	18
28	LAMAR H S	HARRIS	N	51	17
29	GLENDA DAWSON H S	BRAZORIA	N	51	18
30	BELL H S	TARRANT	N	51	11
Total N	30	30	30	30	29