Comment on YES Prep wins national excellence award

YES Prep wins national excellence award Houston Chronicle Copyright 2012 Houston Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Published 10:00 p.m., Thursday, June 21, 2012 The Houston charter school YES Prep won a coveted national award Thursday for its success educating poor, minority students. Charter schools are publicly funded but are exempt from some state regulations. Why are we seeing both a school district and a charter operator in the same city having student outcomes that are clearly besting (their peers)? YES grew out of a small program at HISD's Rusk Elementary School in 1995 to help address high rates of illiteracy, truancy and crime facing students in the East End. In Houston, the charter schools KIPP, Harmony and Can Academy also were eligible for the prize based on their size and longevity. A founding member of YES, Bernal said he thinks the competition and cooperation between charters and traditional schools in Houston has helped the city's children.