Is there academic injustice in dallas?
Dallas Justice Now! is a non profit organization focused on independent advocacy for civil rights and also seeks to showcase Black business ventures in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
There are situations that some people in Dallas cannot seem to achieve, and one of them is fair and equal education for their children. Activists from Dallas Justice Now are taking matters into their own hands by committing themselves to the investigative journalism that exposes the hardships that come with living in a zip code that is considered working low/middle class.
More often than not they found that the failing schools belonged to zip codes whose residents were primarily Black and Hispanic, while schools that had higher ratings were predictably located in the wealthier, more affluent neighborhoods of their white counterparts....but they have one thing in common, these are historical Democratic districts.
Not only does this mean the school was performing poorly due only to individual intent….but also by political design. The issue here is that all these schools exist in the mostly Democratic enclaves in Dallas. That means that regardless of which zip code…they all overwhelmingly voted Blue over the course of several years…if not generations.
Meanwhile Black and Latino children are floundering in resource depleted schools that don’t have a significant population of white children to grow and interact with…which is a subtle way of segregating the haves and the have nots.
The easy all too familiar way out is to accept this. To shift the blame on the parents…or to connect it to a negative racial trope that people engage in because it suites their bias. Here at DJN we believe in the idea that getting our children quality education is the best way to safeguard all our future. It goes beyond student to teacher ratios, technological investments inside and outside classrooms, and of course campus security. It extends to the nutritional content of the cafeteria meals being offered, the diversity of electives available in order to encourage children to pursue higher education, and also the availability of trade school options for those children who are not necessarily meant for college.
The general sentiment is that parents and students do feel let down by the superintendents and there aren’t enough options readily available to rectify the head start that students located in wealthier more affluent districts tend to receive. It seems harmless…but the result is more wealthy students going on to higher education and that invariably translates to higher wages and prospects of home/land ownership.
In the weeks to come our plan in addressing this is to visit parents and local businesses in order to see what it takes to find a better solution for all involved.
Micah Mitchell
DJN Content Supervisor
