Todd is on target as usual.
What will we do?
We are failing Dallas County’s schoolkids
I left the private sector three years ago to volunteer my efforts full time toward education. I’d realized that whatever success I’d had was owed principally to teachers and mentors over the years who’d convinced me I could do anything in life if I studied hard and gave my best.
Growing
up within a family living, at best, paycheck-to-paycheck in East Dallas, my
access to a quality public education from Dallas ISD substantially changed my
life trajectory. Austin College and 100 percent financial aid transformed it. I
was blessed to live the American Dream.
Growing
up in the 1960s and ’70s, my story was very common. Today, it’s increasingly
unique. And we, our collective community, must ask ourselves: Why?
Today,
Dallas County has 500,000 K-12 students. Ninety-one percent of those students
attend a public school. Poverty is pervasive; 70 percent of those students
qualify for free or reduced lunch.
Most
importantly, only 13 percent of public school students who start ninth grade
across Dallas County graduate four years later academically ready for higher
education. For our Hispanic and African-American children, who collectively
represent 80 percent of all first-grade children regionally, that number is 4 percent.
These tragically low numbers represent our community’s future — and that future
is increasingly worrisome.
We
are collectively failing our children. Regardless of their ethnicity or ZIP
code, they are our
children and our region’s future depends on the success of all of them.
Too
many of us have stopped fully supporting our public school system, believing
that if we pay our property taxes, we’ve somehow done enough. But our educators
and children need more than our dollars; they need us to share in the
collective accountability for each child’s future, regardless of whether our
own children are grown or attend school elsewhere. Educators cannot, and must
not, be asked to stem the cycle of poverty alone.
When
is the last time each of us did the following? Encouraged our own offspring to
consider becoming a public school teacher. Asked our company to adopt a school.
Personally mentored a child, volunteered or provided an internship. Thanked a
school board trustee for serving countless hours in an unpaid role. Voted in a
school board election? Held our representatives truly accountable for working
meaningfully to improve our education system.
Within
DISD, we pay over $1.4 billion in taxes, yet less than 2 percent of us vote in
school board elections. The 2011 elections were canceled due to lack of
candidates. We allow select media to focus more on reporting scandal and
conflict among educators instead of discussing academic progress, best
practices and remaining challenges.
We
watched the state decimate pre-K funding in 2011 while concurrently growing
prison expenditures. We watched legislators cut $5 billion of resources for
public K-12 education (taking us to the bottom 10 percent of the nation in
per-pupil funding while college readiness levels remain wholly inadequate) and
said little.
We
do this because we either believe public education can’t be improved or we just
turn away in disbelief or denial that our collective failure won’t
significantly impact our community’s future in terms of workforce or neighborhood
vitality. The sheer size of the numbers states otherwise.
But
there is real hope. Proof points abound that all children are absolutely
capable of learning, regardless of parental involvement levels. Countless
effective teachers throughout our region are achieving outlier results with
children from the same challenging demographics. Hundreds of best practices are
worth spreading.
Businesses,
foundations and individuals are increasingly getting involved. Thousands of
volunteers are asking how to serve. While our community resources are not
inexhaustible, they are plentiful, and if invested wisely could have dramatic
impact on the lives of our children.
But
most importantly, all of us need to collectively recommit to ensuring quality,
universal public education by holding ourselves (and not just parents or
educators) mutually accountable. The often well-publicized but ultimately
unproductive finger pointing among adults, while the collective lives of our
children, and our community’s future, wither on the vine, must stop. The
problem is urgent, it is solvable, and it is ours.
Todd Williams is the education adviser to Dallas Mayor Mike
Rawlings and the executive director of Commit!, a nonprofit focused on
supporting education throughout Dallas County. He can be reached at todd.williams@commit2dallas.org.
