"State Board of No Confidence," Says LTC Jason D. Mims USA Ret.

We are proud to share this letter written by Lieutenant Colonel Jason D. Mims, United states of america Army, Retired, in reaction to the Texas State Board of Teaching'south decision not to grant a lease to S.H. James Preparatory Academy.

Anthony Gordon and, by extension, his distinguished board of directors of SH James Prep Academy roped me into a journey of discovery. They invited me to witness what happens when the Texas Commissioner of Education recommends charter school applicants for approval to the Land Lath of Education (SBOE). The SBOE has the pick of taking no action on the recommendations or saying "No!" to the Commissioner's recommendations.

I witnessed the SBOE pass up the majority of the seven recommendations the Commissioner sent to it. Message to Jason: The SBOE has limited confidence in the Texas Commissioner of Teaching when it comes to his recommendations of making more school choices available to families and students in underserved communities. In that location are fifteen elected officials on the SBOE, representing voters in communities/regions across the state. As a collective body, the SBOE is the last gatekeeper of opportunities for children to have additional charter schoolhouse options as part of their local public teaching ecosystem. I noticed this time that near of the board members relished their power to say "No" and veto the Commissioner'south recommendations.

One could come across clearly that the SBOE wanted to demonstrate that information technology has the power to veto the Commissioner's recommendations. Before forwarding his recommendations to the board, the Commissioner and the Texas Education Agency had already analyzed the merits of each application. From an initial pool of 27 applications for charter schools this year, the Commissioner recommended seven to the SBOE for approving. The SBOE took no action on 3 of them and vetoed iv.

What is equally articulate to me is that local leaders do not control the public instruction options bachelor to students on Eastside San Antonio. When the majority of the SBOE come from other communities and vote to veto the establishment of SH James Prep, "Houston, we have a problem!" Outsiders determine that children in my customs must await before they can admission a public teaching that further develops their entrepreneurial gifts. Reminder to self: "The system is perfectly designed to produce the results we are seeing in underserved communities . . .".

One of my main goals this summer is to witness a number greater than zero of students in my customs participate in Qubit x Qubit, a Quantum Calculating Summertime School led by MIT PhDs and PhD candidates for loftier schoolhouse students across the nation. Fortunately, we do not need SBOE approval to bring this goal into reality. We can do this with the Kindness gifts around u.s.!

In His Service,

Jason D. Mims
Lieutenant Colonel
U.s.a. Ground forces, Retired
Founder/President
Mims Constitute Fellows, Inc.

State Board of No Confidence Jason Mims Afterwards we published his letter, Jason sent the states this update.

Thank you, SA Charter Moms for this timely mail. Only yesterday, the founder of SH James Prep and I met at Eastside Starbucks. We pondered the possibilities for identifying immature people on the Eastside who might have the ability to grasp Breakthrough Computing concepts.

Our Monday fellowship followed terminal Friday'south event at Starbucks where Taylor Miner—number 3 in Sam Houston's Grade of 2021—shared with others on the Eastside concepts she is gaining through Quantum Summer School with IBM Quantum. The eighty-hour, four-calendar week course is led by MIT PhDs. Some 250 young people from beyond the nation and globe are in the Zoom room.

There are unlimited opportunities to uncover the gifts within our youth. Many of those gifts fall beyond what some elected officials who like to say "No!" can see. That'due south where the Ability of Kindness prevails!

Anthony Gordon and Jason Mims