I’m looking at relocating the family from AZ. Charter schools are really popular here. How is the public education system in TX and are charter schools popular there? I was looking at TN and charter schools are very few and far between. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Just depends where you're going, man. Some districts produce winners and have great resources. Some are stuck in a time loop. What area are you looking at?

Lots of charters in larger cities, but they are just as variable as the government schools.

Depends on where ya moving to.  If you give a more specific location I can probably help ya out.

I live in a smallish town (pop 6,500ish) and we have a charter school, along with regular school.

Some of the smaller, rural school districts have the lowest dropout and best college acceptance rates.  That can vary tremendously in a small geographic area.
You decided what general area you want to live in, then you research the school districts and the individual schools within that district.  The difference are crazy.  There was a school in the top ten test scores, that had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the state for two years.

It is all about how the district is managed and the expectations of the teachers...less about money.

Like many places,  property taxes pay for the schools in Texas.  But its seriously fucked up.

(I hope I this right...I am sure someone will correct me, if needed)

First, the state pays every school a stiped based upon the daily attendance they report.   This comes from State Taxes
Second. The individual school district assesses a property tax. There is a limit on the percentage in Texas.  I suspect most districts are right at the max.
Finally, Texas has something called Robin Hood.   The state looks at the school property tax collected by each district and divides it by the number of students.  If the number exceeds a certain threshold, the state requires the school district turn a percentage of the "excessive" tax funds over to the state, which the state then issues back out to poorer school districts.

Some of the worst schools in the state spend the most per student...usually on football stadiums.

Charter schools around DFW seem to be hit or miss.  We've known a few people that sent their kids and one teacher.  Mixed reviews frankly.

Re your last statement. Which one?

By law money for instruction and money for facilities are not mingled and come to the district from different sources.

The Allen stadium was a separate bond issue voted for overwhelmingly in favor of the taxpayers with it known that it would increase taxes about $20 per month.

Allen has an academically top 10 rated district.

Taxes are too high imho for education in Texas regardless of stadium size.

But the districts that have the nicest stadiums tend to be the most prosperous because of the higher educational achievement of its residents I.e. bigger incomes.

Stadiums are evidence of the conditions for higher academic success.

Btw, Forbes magazine said Allen’s high profile school district attracts economic winners and as such means better schools.

This is definitely true in Dallas. What looked promising in a lot of cases turned into a private money grab.

If you want decent in Dallas, you either have to live in the right zip code or try to get into a magnet school. Both my kids are in magnets. Or you can easily pay something like $20k /year for like a private religious school. I Ursuline is $25k plus extras.

These have a great reputation unfortunately they tend to place the magnet schools in areas that most don't want to live near.  PISD puts them east of 75, IIRC DISD had theirs  in not so desirable areas as well.

Ursuline is a solid step above public education, Jesuit for male students is really good too

A lot of them are. But if you live in a bad area in a shit school, say like Wilmer Hutchins High School, getting out to a place where you can at least excel in school is your main priority. If you go to Woodrow Wilson in Dallas, you aren't going to look at some place else.

Travis Vangaurd TAG is on McKinney Ave. Dealy Montessori is off Royal Lane and Hillcrest. They are hard to get into, but not impossible.

We ended up at a Montessori in deep South Oak Cliff. The neighborhood sucks. My daughter did well there, my son, shit, he's not a good student and I can see the demographics changing there. My son gets repeated offers to go to a TAG academy on the corner of Bruton and Lake June. I talked to the staff there, they didn't like it when I pointed out that it was the bloodiest corner in Pleasant Grove. So I get it.

My daughter is finishing at DISD Townview TAG on 8th and I35. #1 ranked high school in the state, #13 nationally.  Not a good part of town, but she scored a 1430 on her SAT and she's already been accepted to college. She worked her ass off there, college is going to be easy for her.

<-----has taught in Plano ISD since 2004 and would like to know more about these magnet schools in east Plano. (being that I've never heard of them)

Plano East is one to start with

School counselor at Renner Middle told me the magnets or academy schools are all east of 75.  I did not dig much deeper since that conversation, a few weeks ago.  We are researching what to do since my oldest is approaching HS age.  She's been in Catholic school but I'm not really convinced the $20K+ for private HS is worth the stretch.   We have 12 months to make a decision at this point, so more research to do.  

We were considering moving her to PISD for their math Rocks program 2 years ago, but covid hit and the Renner admin said she couldn't enter the program because she hadn't been a PISD student.  I didn't push the issue because covid and PISD was still doing virtual when the catholic school opened up for in person.  

I'm not being argumentative here so please correct what wrong, I'm just going off what I've been told by local PISD people.

PISD is a good district, including schools on both sides of 75.  East of 75 is slightly poorer than west of 75 but bad guys have cars in DFW

Plano East isn't a magnet school.
It may have programs that Plano Senior or Plano West do not have, but they have programs East doesn't.

Its okay all the schools can be magnet schools.

 
She needs to look at a map.
PISD does not have "magnet schools".
Academy High School is most definitely NOT east of 75. It's on Alma Dr.

There are no campuses designated as "magnet schools".....all Plano school attendance zones are based on where you live.

There are campuses with special programs or curriculum IN ADDITION to the regular course of sturdy.
Bilingual programs at elementary campuses based on cluster (East, Central and West)
Academy HS for STEM, west of Alma.
IB World School at Plano East and Huffman Elementary (about 2 miles south of Renner MS)

Some programs ARE east of 75 because they are combined with Collin College Spring Creek campus.

DART makes it equal.

It's not the bad guys I'm worried about it's their progeny.

I had high hopes for sending my kid to a Charter school here in Houston for pre-k. It's a supposed to be a science and technology school and it's a hot mess. He's had 4 teachers in one year. They keep quitting after a couple of months. I would definitely do your research and find out if the school has Facebook parents group. Join it and they will tell you the truth.

Depending on where you are looking to move you will find some of the same charter networks in TX that you had in AZ, Great Hearts, BASIS, Legacy, and a few others are here in TX in different places. The biggest question is what are you looking for.

Districts can also build "innovation schools" which allow them to create basically charter competition but still have access to the full scope of things like art, sports etc of a big district. My kid is in an innovation school.

I work in Education, happy to help answer questions.