Critique: Charter Serving High School Dropouts Fights Closure

Morgan Smith's Article describes an Austin charter school's fight to stay open.  She has chosen to target parents with her article.  She chose to target parents because they will envision their own child losing their school.  This will make her words carry more weight with her readers, instead of blindly appealing to everyone she focused on the people who will care the most about this topic.  She does not deal with the subject on a personal level, however she did interview people from both sides of the argument.  She states how and why the schools are being closed, then the problems that have come from the potential closings. The main argument is the schools that will be closed concentrate on high needs students that will probably drop out of school entirely without these schools, that is also the reason these schools don't perform to the same level as the other charters.  She focuses on American YouthWorks here in Austin, the chief executive of the school argues that the law makers should consider more than money and test scores.  On the other hand, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency states that all schools should be held to the same standards. Smith does a good job of gathering the opinion of both sides and conveying it to the reader in an unbiased format.  I believe that all schools should be held to certain standards, but we need to help, not hinder, students who would otherwise withdraw from school. The law makers should look at how many of these students are graduating and becoming productive members of society, instead of how good they are at standardized tests.