Shawgi Tell takes us to Texas, where Austin is home to a concentration of mediocre-to-failing charter schools.
According to the Austin American-Statesman (September 7, 2026), “Academic performance at Austin-area charter schools generally remained the same or slightly declined from 2025 to 2026 on the state’s annual A-F ratings that were released in mid-August.”
More specifically, “Of the 65 charter campuses graded across the Austin area in both years, 17% increased their scores by a letter grade, and 29% declined year over year.” That is not a slight decline.
In raw numbers, more than 25 charter schools received a “C” or lower grade: “Of 65 charters graded in 2025 and 2026, 19 received an A, 20 received a B, nine received a C, 12 received a D and five received an F. While the number of A-rated campuses decreased from 20 in 2025 to 19 this year, the number of D- and F-rated campuses increased, from nine in 2025 to 17 this year.” That is a big increase in poorly-rated schools in a one-year period.
Poor academic performance in charter schools is nothing new, it spans the entire charter school sector. It is present coast to coast. Despite endless disinformation about how great charter schools are and how they are allegedly superior to public schools, a large number consistently perform poorly on various tests in different grades. This can be seen in most cities and states. Visit the charter school database of any state education department and start digging for achievement results. You will quickly find many poor-performing charter schools. Many, sometimes most, charter schools perform worse than their public school counterparts, which are constantly being demonized and attacked.
Some charter schools “that serve children with significant disabilities, aren’t graded by the state [Texas].” This implies that such schools also have low scores that are excluded from the overall tally of charter school scores and rankings.
A main takeaway from this data is that charter schools continue to be over-hyped and portrayed as being better than public schools.
And yet, they aren’t. Read the full post here.