ABSTRACT
Long before it achieved charter school status, Wesley Elementary School confounded expectations. In the early 1990s the Howton Chronicle observed: “Wesley Elementary, in the poor, black Acres Homes neighborhood, has continuously out performed elementary schools in the city’s more affluent neighborhoods on standardized tests” (Editorial, 4/16/91, p. 12A). A decade earlier, in 1980, William Broyles, Jr., editor of the Texas Monthly, had noted:
At the time Broyles wrote, Wesley Elementary was one of the few bright spots on Houston’s educational horizon. Between 1970 and 1980 the White student population of Houston’s public schools shrank from 49% to 27%. News stories focused on White flight, drugs, discipline problems, plummeting test scores, a jeremiad of dissension and decay.
