This week marks the 102nd American Education Week, an annual week-long affair first started by the National Educational Association (NEA), the American Legion, and the U.S. Department of Education.
The original NEA resolution that called for such a spotlight on public education in 1921 spelled out what it should signify:
“An educational week … observed in all communities annually for the purpose of informing the public of the accomplishments and needs of the public schools and to secure the cooperation and support of the public in meeting those needs.”
What do those words mean when it comes to the Dallas Independent School District (DISD)?
No doubt the heroic educators staffing the district’s 240 campuses deserve all the praise in the world for their efforts, considering how DISD has left them stretched so thin.
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, the district leadership cannot seem to retain its instructors, whose low morale is evident in their high turnover rates. Hundreds of veteran teachers with decades of teaching experience are leaving the district every year.
Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde recently tried to shift the blame onto concerned parents and education activists and some of the hot-button cultural tensions surrounding public education.
“Do you want to know why we’re having a hard time getting teachers? It is because they’re being attacked,” she said, according to The Dallas Morning News. “They’re being called names. I get called names all the time, but I signed up for that. They didn’t. Teachers want to serve children.”
While tensions have risen over the past couple of years, the elected school boards are ultimately responsible for the superintendents they hire and are accountable to their constituencies.
At DISD, under Elizalde’s present tenure and that of her controversial predecessor, Michael Hinojosa, it seems like the district is prioritizing a concoction of various schemes to attract new, often inexperienced teachers instead of doing everything they can to retain experienced staff.
Badly needed teachers have been sourced from abroad (Mexico and Colombia), office staff are reportedly being pulled from the district office, and inexperienced, uncertified instructors that go through DISD’s alt-certification program are run through the wringer with a fraction of the training dedicated career educators went through.
The Dallas Express tips its hat to those willing to enter the profession and turn the district around.
The most recent accountability report by the Texas Education Agency painted a dire picture, revealing that only 41% of DISD students scored at grade level on the STAAR test and almost 20% of the graduating class of 2022 did not walk at commencement.
