1. One takeaway I had from the Dallas Morning News’ two part story (part 1 and part 2) on “black flight,” the steady decline in the number of African American students attending Dallas Independent School District schools: maybe the concept of geographically based public school is outdated. Is there an argument here for a re-segregation of public schools, with distinctions not drawn up along racial lines of distinction, but on need-based lines? Say we reorganize the district so that some schools specialize in raising math skills, some in reading skills, and some in language skills. There could be some schools that specialize in engaging immigrant families in their children’s educational experience and others that specialize in engaging families in certain social-economic situations. This might end up looking like racial segregation, and it opens up tons of room for abuse (cough, cough, Preston Hollow Elementary), so I’ll leave you to tell me why it’s a dumb idea in the comments.
2. After shooting John F. Kennedy (allegedly, right?), Lee Harvey Oswald hopped a bus to cross the Houston St. viaduct, but when it got caught in traffic, he jumped off the bus and hailed a cab. That cab had been in the collection of the now defunct Pate Museum of Transportation. On Saturday, it was auctioned off and sold to an Illinois museum. It’s not exactly our Elgin Marbles, but I hate to see that one get away.
3. And file this good news story under “Thank goodness there are people like this out there”: a couple in Azle, Texas, used money from their savings to buy a five-bedroom home and take in five special-needs foster children, because some people are just awesome like that, I guess.
3 comments
I like the idea in theory. It sounds like you would make a bunch of magnet schools for the less talented and gifted, although I presume your idea would allow for TAG schools as well (query, would they go to the same schools, e.g. the “math” school).
In practice, it would end up in litigation until the end of time. Schools specializing in “engaging immigrant families” or in “language skills” sound a lot like schools for Hispanics.
There is the second problem that already exists under the surface but which would likely be amplified by your plan: Do we harm our brightest students by making them go to classes with students who struggle or do we harm the students who struggle by taking the brightest kids out of their classes? Your plan seems to choose the latter over the former, but until there is a clear policy decision and appropriate steps are taken to blunt the impact on the students that are harmed, it will be impossible to cure the ills of urban school districts.
Dallas high schools are mandated to redesign themselves:
http://www.dfpe.org/pdf/redesign_FAQ.pdf
Some have done it on their own and some have been forced.
My alma mater, Woodrow, has been working on this for several years and the plan was approved last year. It will become a college preparatory high school with four academies:
Academy of Math, Science and Technology (STEM) Academy
Academy of Performing Arts
Academy of Banking, Finance and Entrepreneurship
Academy of International Baccalaureate
Woodrow was selected as one of four Texas candidate high schools for IB last year. It is expected to be approved in the fall as an IB World School. This will be phased in over the next four years – ninth grade will be offering Pre-IB this year and 130 eighth graders applied this spring. The majority are from privates and other district feeder schools outside the Woodrow zone – 33 are from J. L. Long, the feeder middle school.
So in essence, most high schools will soon have a magnet-like component.
@ LakeWWWooder, What does it say about our hometown newspaper when the most relevant and current information is frequently found in the comments section of FB? I could write similarly about the W. T. White redesign or the dual language immersion programs at our elementary schools.
You and I know that many of our schools are doing very well with and without community support and we dream how our schools and town would flourish if our community knew what we do. But to get there, the DMN reporters must spend more time in our schools than they do retrieving records, attending school board meetings, and absorbing the negative rants on their blog.
Since that’s not likely to change, we will continue the local efforts that brought Woodrow 130 applicants and North Dallas a record turnout for the common open house week held in February.