TALAS E-newsletter – November 4

The urban and suburban boom of Texas is full of both promise and risk. According to the 2020 census, Texas grew the fastest — and grew more diversely — than any state in the union since 2010. And according to Texas 2036, the state’s population is likely to grow to 10 million by 2036, Texas’ bicentennial. Over 71 percent of jobs will require some college, but only 32 percent of Texas high school students earn a degree or credential within six years of graduating high school.

According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, the gains that Texas students were making in the 1990s and 2000s have stalled, leaving many Texas young people behind in reading and math, the academic building blocks needed for future success.

This past year has seen many of our schools pushed to their limits, not just by the pandemic but also the impact of climate change. Schools across the country have faced closures from climate-related disasters including hurricanes, floods, and wildfires.

When COVID-19 exposed the fragility of public education, our schools adapted. It’s never been clearer that schools are the cornerstones of our communities and will find a way to build resilience, even in the face of a crisis.

As educators work through another unpredictable year, schools must lean into reinvention. The sudden onset of COVID-19 forced schools and systems to change on the fly, required teachers, families and students to develop new ways of teaching and learning, and proved schools are capable of rapid and significant change. The old, familiar ways of doing school left too many behind, and as the country continues to face new challenges, we should embrace this opportunity to develop approaches that more equitably serve students — especially those who have been historically marginalized, such as students of color.

While the pandemic has increased opportunities and enthusiasm for school systems to redesign approaches for academic and non-academic supports, the funding pressures and exhaustion weighing on educators and families are obstacles that will need to be addressed to effect long-sustaining change, participants in The State of the American School District virtual panel said Tuesday.

The panel was hosted by the Center on Reinventing Public Education, RAND Corporation and other organizations to discuss school systems’ pandemic experiences, including competing challenges they face and their problem-solving approaches.

The August school board meeting in this South Carolina community started with a plea for grace. “It’s the most important tool we have right now,” a parent told the Lexington-Richland 5 school board.

Two months earlier, the superintendent of the roughly 17,000-student district abruptly resigned after months of sometimes heated debates about mask policies and social issues. A school board member resigned on the spot the same night, making way for a special election to fill his seat.

Consider the backdrop against which Democrats in Congress are debating how to help the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country: Border Patrol agents on horseback rounding up Haitian asylum seekers; toddlers huddled on the frigid floors of detention facilities under Mylar blankets; President Barack Obama’s record deportation numbers; the post-9/11 transformation of border flows into matters of national security; multiple failed attempts at bipartisan, comprehensive reform. In this tumult, one approach — one even endorsed by the Supreme Court — might seem deceptively obvious to any legislator tasked with fixing it all: First, protect the children.