DISD Puts FAILING SCHOOLS IN BLACK NEIGHBORHOODS
-There are 29 failing schools in Dallas ISD, mainly those in Black-majority neighborhoods
-Failing schools = School to Prison Pipeline
-Why do DISD President Justin Henry and Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde allow school segregation?
According to the Texas Education Agency, there are 29 Failing Schools in Dallas ISD. That means 29 schools where students are leaving students needing to learn fundamental skills. Some kids at Dallas ISD can barely read, write, add, or subtract. How is this conceivable? How do leaders stand by and allow for it?
These schools that are failing are almost all in majority-Black neighborhoods that serve families that are low-income or below the poverty line. So the idea of a child getting the education that could be a vital part of the betterment of their family's institution is always the priority—education matters.
Let's look at some more alarming numbers.
Fifty-nine schools have a "C" rating from The Texas Education Agency. But those "C" schools are actually "F" schools. Why? Because the DISD protested the decision to raise expectations for the schools to reach an evaluation on their ability to prepare a student for overall readiness for the world once they graduate.
Suppose Dallas ISD refuses to educate our kids and take accountability for its failings. In that case, the only way to hold them accountable is to provide better options for our children.
That means pushing for charter schools.
When we advocate for a charter option, we are advocating for these students to have the opportunity to attend a charter school with close ties to the community, whose purpose is not to fit into one size flunks all, but rather a goal where the priority is to give students the tools to combat the disparity that is waiting for them at every step of the road home. If there are behavioral setbacks, we find the solutions needed for these emotional fractures to be healed by community specialists. Hence, the environment encourages them to be better people and succeed.
Why don't President Justin Henry and Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde see that? This stance is due to them coming from positions of wealth and privilege. They see low-income students as a means to keep getting their government funding. They prop the high-performing schools with successful programs at the forefront of their publicity to justify their institution. Let's look at the fact that they chose not to publish the actual evaluation of the failing schools and their readiness to throw piss poor bonuses structures to teachers and aides for teaching in these disparate areas.
They will control how many slots are available in the highly rated and elite schools while keeping the schools struggling or failing in a tight grip, making it hard for families to find better options—or forcing long commutes to magnet schools.
Anything but allowing a charter to compete with the government funding the DISD says it needs to function in these neighborhoods. They want to ensure the families who send their children to these schools stay on the bottom, with the bottom bunk having poverty and prison as the most likely bedfellows. They are playing a cold and effective game with these people because it allows them to maintain a power structure of the status quo.
They could act with the same urgency we sense with the matter. We see how kids can slip through the cracks and how parents can watch their kids go from growing and healthy to being an unfortunate statistic of the opioid epidemic. They could see the special relationship between how people who turn to crime or degeneracy in Dallas tended to have had firsthand experience with a failing school. Instead, they act on behalf of their cronies with alliance-based decisions that either prioritize the wealthy elites of Dallas or run up a shell game with the outstanding well-rated schools that we tend to find in affluent neighborhoods, the mediocre schools, and the failings schools that, they want to sweep under the rug. This game is rigged. If we were to introduce charters, the competitive nature that a charter school can provide with its readiness to reformat the educational environment would have them beat by a country mile. They choose not to because they see that they can get away with this con game.
And, of course, the first claim they will make is that charter schools don't do well with accountability, which is ironic given their refusal to rate failing schools that happen to be in Black neighborhoods. They demand accountability when they cannot address their lack.
The best accountability is the right to choose. Wealthy white suburban kids can choose between high-quality public schools and top-tier private "prep" or "country day" schools. That keeps both schools accountable in trying to earn the child's attendance. Black students should have that same right; they deserve that right. And anyone who believes in the importance of education as a tool of upward mobility MUST support school choice for black students in Dallas and reject the cynicism of Justin Henry and Stephanie Elizalde.
