Alpha Schools and a foot in the door

 I hope that you've been keeping up with Ben Riley's reporting on Alpha Schools and specifically the experience of students there; you can find his sixth report from last week here. The way that students have been treated should concern us all. 

Largely, though, I am posting to urge you to read the Texas Tribune's report on Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who oversees the public schools of Texas, working to get Alpha Schools into the public school system there. It's a collaborative report with ProPublica, which draws on months of public records' requests. 

Over the last year, Morath and his staff at the Texas Education Agency exchanged a flurry of emails with leaders of companies connected to Alpha about possible partnerships, visited their campuses several times, helped with a one-page explainer about the program to share with school districts and connected them with district leaders, according to communications obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune through public information requests. 

One email revealed that Morath offered to personally introduce an Alpha leader to the superintendent he appointed to lead the yearslong state takeover of Houston Independent School District, the largest in the state. 

“I’d also like to set up another site visit to visit both your Austin secondary and primary with my team,” wrote Morath. “The Superintendent of H.I.S.D. would also like to do a site visit, so l’ll connect y’all separately. And hopefully we can schedule them to happen on the same day.” 

The emails show that state education officials and Alpha affiliates approached at least 10 school districts about the AI program. After the coordination, at least three of those districts — Houston; Fort Davis, in West Texas; and Aldine, near Houston — launched pilot programs incorporating the AI tool. 

The full extent of Morath and his agency’s involvement, as well as the number of public school districts using the AI program, remains unclear. The TEA has not responded to questions about its efforts for months, initially failed to provide some of Morath’s emails in response to public information requests and continues fighting the release of additional communications.

It's bad enough that this is out there and sucking in families at all. That the influence of a state leadership is being wielded in its favor--and this in a state where the state board refused to allow Alpha Schools to open as a charter!--is worse.