BY NATALIE KAHARICK CEO, Texas Public Charter Schools Association

Natalie Kaharick is the CEO of the Texas Public Charter Schools Association, which advocates on behalf of 986 public charter schools and more than 446,000 students. She champions a public education system that continuously improves on the way to meeting the needs of all children.

Thirty years ago, many of us were listening to Alanis Morissette on a Walkman and waiting for AOL to dial up. The Texas Legislature was taking a bold step into the future.

State lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1 in 1995 with a large, bipartisan majority. The legislation created a new kind of public school — the public charter school — that empowers educators with more freedom and flexibility to meet students’ needs.  

What happened next changed lives. Texas public charter schools have educated 1.5 million students and delivered for families from all backgrounds.

Students, parents, and educators are celebrating this history during National Charter Schools Week. But it’s also a blueprint. Charter schools strengthen public education in ways that point the state forward — and are worth emulating.

The first graduate from a Texas public charter school attended a dropout prevention and recovery program while working two jobs to support her family. More than 103,000 students have graduated from dropout recovery charter schools since, completely changing the trajectory of their lives. Many leave high school with an industry certification that unlocks a great career right away.

It’s clear that parents need more choices in public education. Families don’t want their options determined solely by where they can afford to live — they want the best fit for their children. Public charter schools have responded by creating or expanding access to dozens of models, from classical education to Montessori, in order to meet the needs of more children.

But it’s not enough to create more options. Public charter schools also promised to increase student learning. Thirty years later, we know that’s happening. Just look at high school outcomes.

About 86 percent of public charter school graduates demonstrated college readiness in 2024, according to state data, compared to 72 percent of graduates from other standard accountability public schools. 

Doors to opportunity are opening across the state. For example, our latest research shows that  576,000 Texas high school students are residentially zoned to a high school rated C or lower. But two out of three of those students live within a 15-minute drive of an A or B-rated public charter school.

That’s 368,000 children with easy access to a high-performing public school that otherwise wouldn’t have been an option.

What’s remarkable about these outcomes is that public charter schools educate larger shares of high-need students, such as children from low-income families and English learners, than other public schools.

Danny Martinez, for example, thrived at KIPP Texas in Houston. He told us that caring educators went the extra mile to show him new possibilities for his future — helping him “beat the odds” and realize his full potential.  

Today, he’s a graduate of UT Permian Basin with a bachelor’s in petroleum engineering. It could have played out differently.

“I would have never made it to where I am now if it weren’t for a charter school such as KIPP,” Danny said. “I would have ended up in jail or dead in the streets.”

Of course, none of this is possible without empowering educators who are willing to roll up their sleeves and redefine what public schools can achieve. It takes Texas-sized determination.

The first generation of public charter school leaders held classes in churches, basements, and restaurants, drove the vans, vacuumed the buildings, and even took out personal loans because the state hadn’t issued any funding yet.  

They persisted because they had a vision — a public education system where all children, regardless of their background, truly thrive. This Charter Schools Week, Texans can celebrate that we’re closer to that vision than ever before.

How do we finish the job?

At the signing ceremony for the law that created public charter schools, Governor George W. Bush said, “This is not a Republican bill or a Democratic bill. This is a Texas bill.”

If adults keep working together on practical solutions for kids, we can make the next 30 years as successful as the last. That’s what our students deserve.