IDEA Public Schools

IDEA Public Schools, Inc. was co-founded by Tom Torkelson and JoAnn Gama, former Teach For America corps members, as a not‐for‐profit Texas corporation headquartered in Weslaco. By 2008 IDEA had 10 schools and was serving 4,000 students Many parents withdrew their children from the school, and IDEA had to recruit from outside the neighborhood and even outside of East Austin to get students. IDEA's Contract for Charter with the State of Texas was renewed in 2015 and expires in 2025. As of 2015 it served about 19,000 students in 36 schools, about 85% of whom were economically disadvantaged. and received a $16M donation to expand its operations in Austin from three schools to 26 schools. In 2019 IDEA announced plans to expand in the San Antonio area after the United States Department of Education issued it a $116 million grant. It also announced plans to establish charter schools in Greater Houston. In 2020, co-founder Tom Torkelson resigned from his position as CEO, with fellow co-founder JoAnn Gama taking his place. In 2021, Gama, along with chief operating officer Irma Muñoz, was fired following an investigation concluding that they were involved in the misuse of funds. Board of directors chair Al Lopez took over as acting superintendent and CEO. Following the death of Lopez in 2022, Collin Sewell took over his position as chair, superintendent, and CEO. Later, Dr. Jeff Cottrill took over the roles of superintendent and CEO. ==Teachers==

According to the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR) and based on 2015 data, 24.5% of teachers were currently beginning their first year of teaching at IDEA, 60% had about 1 to 5 years of experience while 9.8% had 6 to 10 years of teaching experience. Around 5% of teachers had 11 to 20 years of experience while less than 1 percent had over 20 years of experience. In terms of ethnicity, the teacher population was 1.6% Asian/Pacific Islander, 2.9% African American, 77.4% Hispanic, 17.6% White and 0.3% were of two or more races. IDEA officials said in 2016 that about 12% of their teachers were Teach for America corps members. ==Schools==

Individual IDEA schools usually launch on their own land with only three or four grades: kindergarten, first, and second grades in an "Academy" (as IDEA calls their primary schools), and a sixth grade to seed a "College Preparatory" school, which combines middle school and high school. It fills in the rest of the grades over the next six or seven years. As of 2015, about 65% of students who entered 9th grade did not graduate at an IDEA school. ==Finances==

Like other public schools, IDEA schools get state funding on a per-student basis, and they also get federal funding on a per-low-income-student basis from the federal government under Title I. Grants In 2010 the United States Department of Education, under its Investing in Innovation program, awarded IDEA and the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District a $5M grant to train teachers. IDEA raised an additional $3M in private donations to fund the teacher training center; hiring teachers from the Rio Grande Valley was a goal for both school systems but people who had already been educated there were under-prepared. In 2012 the company received a Race to the Top grant for $29.2M from the U.S. Department of Education. In 2012 it also received a Department of Education grant of $11.5M to be paid over the next seven years. In 2013 it had received significant funding from Choose to Succeed, a coalition of San Antonio-based foundations seeking to bring more charter schools to their city. As of 2016, IDEA had received grants from the Charter School Growth Fund and the Walton Family Foundation, Salaries In 2016 IDEA employed 876 teachers and the average teacher salary was $44,572 (statewide: $50,715); salaries ranged from a beginner's salary of $38,152 (statewide: $44,540) to someone with 20+ years experience making $60,175 (statewide: $59,787). In 2011, the CEO Tom Torkelson received a base pay rate of $238,812 and with 9,505 students in IDEA schools, had a salary-to-student ratio of $25.121 in the same year the superintendent of the Dallas ISD was responsible for 157,575 students and had a salary of $211,216 for a ratio of $1.34. In 2012, his base salary was $299,000 and in 2013 his total compensation reportable to the IRS was $373,307. ==Media attention==

National rankings In 2016 the U.S. News & World Report High School Rankings listed seven IDEA college preparatory schools, three of which reported graduate rates ranging from 98 to 100% and four of which had no rates listed. College readiness percentages ranged from 54% to 86% with no data available for one. Their Texas state rankings ranged from 15th to 67th with no data on one of them. Six of the schools received gold medal rankings. Jay Mathews commented on the ranking in the Post: "Even more startling is the appearance of six public charter high schools in some of the poorest parts of Texas among the top 50 schools on our list, which I have produced for The Post (and previously for Newsweek) for 18 years. Those six schools, and a seventh that ranks No. 106, are all part of the Idea (sic) Public Schools charter network." In the 2014 U.S. News & World Report high school rankings, there were 3 IDEA schools listed; the IDEA college prep school in Donna ranked 30 out of all public high schools in the United States and 5th in the state of Texas. In 2022, the Jay Mathews Challenge Index placed IDEA McAllen College Prep (CP) as the best school in the United States of America, with IDEA Pharr CP, IDEA San Juan CP, and IDEA Frontier CP placing in the top ten of the ranking. Awards and recognition In 2015 the US Department of Education included IDEA as one of its "Bright Spots" in Latino education, as part of the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. In 2015 Children at Risk, a children's advocacy group in Houston, published a report evaluating data on charter schools in Texas that concluded: "Some charters, including YES Prep, KIPP, Idea Public Schools, Texas Preparatory Network, and Uplift Education are taking disadvantaged students to new heights of academic success, achieving what nobody thought possible. These high-performing charters excel in the education of Texas children, and do so in spite of serving a greater percentage of economically-disadvantaged children than the state average." In 2016 IDEA, YES Prep Public Schools, and Success Academy were named as the top three finalists for the annual Broad Prize for Charter Schools; IDEA had been a finalist in 2014 and 2015 as well. Criticism and controversy On May 25, 2011, over 40 sensitive emails were leaked to local businesses and education leaders which mentioned the lack of potential that teachers had to be promoted into a higher position, such as a leadership role. The leaked emails were also sent to state charter officials and other IDEA staff which contained talks about expansion to other cities such as San Antonio and Austin, a bias towards Teach For America corps members and criticism involving an administrator in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo district. In regards to preference for Teach For America members, Tom Torkelson said that he would place a "20 year veteran" if he or she could produce "expected student success results." Speaking about the administrator incident, Torkelson said that he was "frustrated" and used "some very choice words" at the moment, but has mentioned that the partnership with PSJA has been "going better than ever." The district has been criticized for selecting students based on academic performance. Dr. Ed Fuller, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, has said that IDEA schools do not enroll "underserved" students. Antonio Limon, a San Benito school superintendent, criticized the district for "cherry picking" its students. Limon claimed that IDEA picked higher performing students when holding lotteries for admission. Torkelson has denied these claims, stating that schools host "transparent, public lotteries." Limon, however, said that even though lotteries are hosted, the district keeps the "best" students, while taking out the lower performing ones. AlterNet, a progressive news outlet and Independent Media Institute project, criticized IDEA for eliminating "critical thinking" in the district's curriculum, placing board members from banking organizations to generate profit for the school and taking taxpayer money to create expansion. The source has commented that IDEA board members belong to organizations such as JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and the International Bank of Commerce. IDEA's organization status was also criticized for taking "public subsidies" to continue operating. Although the school often "boasts" that it has a near 100% rate of its graduates going to college, ==See also==