Texas Charters Win Big In Facility-Grant Competition

By Michelle Galley

While charter schools in most states are struggling for facilities aid, in Texas they have reaped the benefits of a multimillion-dollar grant program for school renovations and repairs.

Even though those largely independent public schools educate only 1 percent of the students in Texas, such schools received nearly 40 percent of the funding from the $72 million program, financed with federal aid from a Clinton administration facilities initiative.

The one-year program provided $1.2 billion...