Written by Don Byrd
The Texas Tribune reports on a growing trend in the state’s education system: religious schools and school facilities transitioning to charter schools, where they receive public funding. Many charter academies focus on a language immersion, and must teach the culture of the country where the language is spoken, but must avoid religious education. The article profiles the Eleanor Kolitz Hebrew Language Academy:
The academy, which opened in August at the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Campus of the San Antonio Jewish Community, is the first Texas charter to offer Hebrew, and one of two charters awarded by the state in 2012 to open in a Jewish center. School officials have faced questions over their leasing arrangements and the populations they serve, but they say they are keeping religion out of the classroom and are focused on serving a diverse student body.
Last year, the campus housed a different Eleanor Kolitz Academy, a private Jewish day school. But in June the private school closed its doors. The new Kolitz Academy opened in the same space as a K-8 public charter with a $600,000 start-up grant from the Texas Education Agency. Enrollment increased to nearly 200 students from 80, with most students and staff members returning after the transition, school officials said.
Monitoring charter schools poses administrative challenges because they are privately run, but that makes it all the more important that safeguards are maintained to ensure public funds aren’t being used in a way that violates the separation of church and state. Where a school formerly operated as a private, religious school, as Texas Freedom Network’s Dan Quinn says, it may be legal but it raises questions.
