Under threat of possible takeovers by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), nine school districts are set to hand over 15 public schools to Third Future Schools-Texas (TFS-Texas), a charter school operator previously run by state-appointed Houston ISD superintendent Mike Miles.
In recordings of school board meetings and interviews with the Texas Observer, some leaders of these districts report that they believed the nonprofit was the only operator that TEA would approve to run the schools—even though numerous other operators should be eligible.
On March 24, it took less than two hours for San Antonio’s Edgewood ISD board members to hear a presentation from TFS-Texas, then vote to hand over one of its middle schools to the private charter school network to run.
