"It’s déjà vu all over again. As go the Magnet Schools and Learning Centers, so goes Dallas."
On Thursday May 14, 2009 the Dallas ISD School Board is scheduled to vote on a resolution (.pdf) to modify campus staffing formulas (.pdf) that many believe will have dire and negative consequences for Learning
Centers, Magnets, Vanguards and Academies in Dallas ISD. The reason, ostensibly, is that approximately $130 million in Title I and other federal funding could be lost if they do not take this action.
A number of stakeholders
have weighed in on this issue and offered the result of their research and/or opinion, creating what some would call “reasonable
doubt” as to the need to take such definitive and immediate action on the part of the Board. Their findings are included
here. Moreover, they question whether this action is in violation of the Covenants and Commitments (.pdf) made by the Board when Dallas ISD was released from the Federal Desegration Court Order in June 2003.
Community
members are asking that the Board and Administration delay the vote
at a minimum and give further consideration to the possibility of existing opportunities and legal precedents to maintain
the funding and integrity of our strongest programs as well as alternative solutions to the funding question.
Some question the efforts of our leadership to seriously investigate viable alternatives. Section 1113(a)(7) of Title I itself allows a waiver to be granted for Magnet schools.
Rather than cannibalize
the programs that have proven to be among the brightest shining stars in the nation according to US News and World Report (DISD’s Science and Engineering Magnet (SEM) and Talented and Gifted Magnet (TAG) are #18 and #28, respectively) - thereby penalizing their students for being (dare we say it?) “too successful,“
- let’s attempt, as a community with common interests and common resources, to seek ways to recreate in our neighborhood schools the elements that make these programs successful
in the first place: motivated students, involved parents, excellent faculty and solid academic and extracurricular
programs.
Major corporations like AT&T strongly consider the
quality of a city's public education programs when choosing their corporate headquarters. Any action that weakens the strongest
part of our public education system could cost our local economy potentially tens of thousands of jobs and millions
of dollars in future revenue.
Please weigh in on this issue and make your voice heard. Contribute to the dialogue and do what you can to help make the Dallas Public Schools great. But cutting funding to the highest-performing
schools in Dallas ISD is not the answer.
Sincerely,
Rossi Walter
