Davis, Hill coming across as anti-education council members

Why is Dallas city Council member Carolyn Davis so anti-education? And why is colleague Vonciel Hill joining this anti-education parade?

Davis is dead set against creating a mechanism that would allow charter schools in Dallas to issue low interest bonds for construction projects. And if such a mechanism is created, she plans to do her best to scuttle it. Why? She claims the city should be supporting DISD instead, an argument totally irrelevant to the subject up for debate.

Carolyn Davis

First, there is little the city can do to help DISD, which is content on digging its own grave and shunting aside anyone who tries to help. (Anyone remember the efforts of Ross Perot and Sandy Kress?)

Second, whatever power the city has in the field of public education should be directed at providing the opportunity for the best possible public education for its school-age chldren, not fighting stupid turf wars.

And who does Davis offer to speak on her side? Members of the various teacher associations, which, more than any other single body, is responsible for the mess our public schools are in. And, if you don’t believe me on this, but are advocates of public school education, then rent, borrow, download, or buy a copy of the documentary Waiting for Superman to learn why our public schools are in so much trouble. Then add to that the fact Dallas has a school board totally uninterested in education – a board that will run off any superintendent intent on improving educational standards (see Michael Hinajosa, among others), and you will understand why alternatives are desperately needed.

I imagine Davis is proud to be a product of the DISD, although she is not the best advertisement for a DISD education. She wants the traditions, the old ways of doing things preserved. But the old ways simply don’t work anymore. It’s a new and different day – far different from the days I attended public schools, far different from the days Davis attended them as well.

This argument should not be and cannot be about which educational body should be in charge of educating our public school students, as Davis and Hill think it should be. The subject of this debate – the only subject – is what can the city do to provide its school age children the best possible public school education. And how can that education be provided now – not in some utopian future when and if DISD gets its act together.

Perhaps if Davis and Hill had a child or a grandchild about to enter the school system, they would see the light. It makes a big difference when you really have something at stake in this fight.