The Miseducation of Dallas County

Our first episode of our new podcast series for InvestEdTX entitled, The Twisted Saga of Texas School Finance. You can find this and more at https://soundcloud.com/investedtx or https://www.investedtx.org/

The Dallas County Promise was launched this year as an ambitious effort to dramatically increase the number of high school graduates who earn a college degree or certificate. But don't call the Promise just a scholarship, because making college affordable isn't the biggest obstacle to overcome to create access for students who are often the first in their family to attend college.

Mollie Belt, the CEO and publisher of The Dallas Examiner, provides us a glimpse into her life growing up in Dallas in the 1940s and 50s, and a look at how segregation and integration impacted her education and her life.

A candid conversation with Dallas ISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa about his experience as a student during court ordered desegregation efforts in 1971 and issues and opportunities that face the school district today.

64 years after Brown v Board, where do we stand? And what is the difference between desegregation and integration?

Have you seen the news about two low performing schools in West Dallas closing? Well, it actually has to do with a lot more than test scores. And one may not even need to close after all. So go behind the headlines and into the history with this month's edition of Miseducation.

A conversation about the 2017 Dallas County Community Scorecard, an annual presentation of a year's worth of data analysis, measuring the health of the overall education system here in Dallas County. I wasn't quite sure what that all meant, so I somehow convinced three very busy staff members to sit down and tell me about it.

On September 28th, 2017, the Dallas Independent School District took a vote to fast track the renaming process for four elementary schools: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, William L. Cabell, and Albert Sidney Johnston. These schools were chosen because each of these men were generals in the Confederacy. As it turns out, these schools and their names arose out of very specific and rather divisive political eras. And in order to understand why it was necessary to undo the actions of older generations, we have to revisit them.

Tucked away in a shopping center beside the Pan-African Bookstore, not far from South Oak Cliff High School, is a green neon sign that says For Oak Cliff. It's the logo of a community center, founded and lead by Taylor Toynes. Taylor's a partner here at Commit and a lifelong member of the community. And last month, he was kind enough to introduce me to his grandmother, who moved to this neighborhood in 1944, and ran a store with her husband in the same shopping center for over thirty years. I wanted to talk to Margaret Benson to hear what it was like to attend a Dallas high school in the years immediately following Brown vs. Board of Education. A few of the answers to those specific questions were invaluable to an upcoming episode of our podcast, the Miseducation of Dallas County. But Mrs. Benson's story extends far beyond that one moment, and in the hour we spent together she spoke on education, segregation, social life, and the history of her neighborhood, the historic Tenth Street district, or as she calls it, the Hills.

Episode two of The Miseducation of Dallas County, Test Scores and Trampolines, looks at N.W. Harllee - both the man and the Dallas ISD early childhood center named after him, and explores how focusing on the whole child versus test preparation impacts student outcomes.

Episode One: The Miseducation of Dallas County is a monthly podcast series taking a close look at the history (and historical issues)of public education in Dallas County. Episode one looks at school funding in the 1880s and today, and finds more similarities that you might expect.