By Kurt Hubler KERA 90.1 Reporter
Dallas, TX – Narrator in audio excerpt from film, "Building Tomorrow Today": Dallas has chosen excellence. We've chosen to take our young people by the hand and help their dreams along. After all, their dreams may be our only hope.
Kurt Hubler, KERA 90.1 Reporter: The 1978 film, "Building Tomorrow Today," was used by the Dallas School District to convince the city that magnet schools were the best way to achieve desegregation and also fulfill the career goals of students.
Dallas students in audio excerpt from "Building Tomorrow Today": I want to be an artist when I grow up. I want to be a doctor. I think I want to be a teacher.
Hubler: U.S. District Judge William "Mack" Taylor ordered the magnet school program in 1976 on the recommendation of a local task force. It was designed to attract students from throughout the district by offering accelerated classes, and, at the high school level, a focus on particular careers. Carolyn Bailey is the Superintendent of DISD's Area Nine and says from an academic standpoint, the city's magnet program has been a success.
Carolyn Bailey, Assistant Superintendent, Area 9, Dallas Independent School District: If you look at the accountable reporting that was given by the Texas Education Agency, the majority of the campuses that received exemplary or recognized rating came from the magnet programs.
Hubler: Last month, 13 of the DISD's 22 magnet schools received the state's highest rankings based on their TAAS scores. The district's flagship magnet school is the Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center located in Oak Cliff. More than 2,000 students are enrolled at the high school, which includes instruction in six fields - known as clusters - including Business, Engineering, and Health professions. Robert Giesler is Principal for Townview?s Government and Law programs.
Robert Giesler, Principal for Public Services, Government Law and Law Enforcement, Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center: By the time the kids leave here as seniors, they will have done everything that a first year law student has done. The concept is to put the kids with their hands on, and let the kids do the discovery, let the kids do the exploration, have the teachers there as guides.
Hubler: Giesler disputes the argument that magnet schools rob other schools of the best students in the district, saying they simply attract those who are interested in the programs. Back in August of 1995, Townview opened to protests by local residents who feared the money that went into the magnet program was being taken away from neighborhood schools. Carolyn Bailey says those claims have never been true.
Bailey: Our funding is based on the student population that we have. And our magnet programs, where the additional funding is coming in is for the specialized teachers however, they?re not getting anything more than the other comprehensives than the personnel, so if you really looked at and compared budgets from one comprehensive school to the other, it?s based on a formula.
Hubler: The racial composition for all magnet schools in the district is also based on a formula. Under the '76 court ruling, 96% of each student body must be evenly divided between Anglos, African Americans, and Hispanics. The remaining four percent should be made up of other ethnicities such as Asians and Native Americans. School officials estimate Townview's student population is about 52% Hispanic. Meeting racial guidelines overall in Dallas' magnet schools has been a daunting task, according to Carolyn Bailey.
Bailey: When you look at the individual campuses, the reports will show is that we do not have the 32% Anglo population; but, as you know, there is only nine percent Anglo population in the entire district.
Hubler: Even though the racial mix hasn't been ideal, Matthew Houston, an African American senior at the school of Health Professions, says attending Townview has been a valuable experience.
Matthew Houston, Senior, Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center: It breaks down stereotypes because when you are with one culture, you have different opinions on another culture. When I got here I was learning the different cultures, and everyone is similar to all of us and to where we connect as one. And so at Townview, it's easier to breakdown ethnic backgrounds to become friends.
Hubler: While achieving a racial balance has been difficult in Dallas' magnet schools, the northern suburb of Richardson, which has a greater number of Anglo students, has been more successful. In 1975, the federal court told RISD schools to desegregate. That order remains in effect today, and has resulted in the creation of six magnet schools, including one in the predominately African American neighborhood of Hamilton Park. The school originally housed grades K through 12, and was destined to be shut down when its junior high and high school students were bused elsewhere. But residents devised a plan to turn the school into an elementary magnet. 50% of the school's student body would be from the neighborhood, with the remaining coming from elsewhere in the district. As an incentive to bring in those students, the Hamilton Pacesetter magnet offered classes not found in other elementary schools, such as drama and Spanish. Vaughn Gross, Hamilton Park's principal for the past three years, says those programs have made the school the envy of the district.
Vaughn Gross, Principal, Hamilton Park Pacesetter Magnet: I was a principal at another school. I would look at things going on at Hamilton Park. They had the first outdoor education program; I wanted my students to have an outdoor education program. Hamilton Park had state-of-the-art technology; I wanted my students to have state-of-the-art technology. So we really did look to Hamilton Park as a model, and we eventually got some of the same things happening here.
Hubler: Gross says the school's popularity has resulted in a waiting list of children. That has created some tension among neighborhood residents who must bus their children to other schools. But Gross says the majority of those who do apply are admitted. She adds that magnet schools will always have a place in the Richardson district, with or without a court order. But in Dallas, members of the city's Hispanic community have doubts. Ramiro Lopez, who unsuccessfully ran for the school board last year, says he wants magnet type programs to be offered at non-magnet schools. Lopez adds he doesn't believe the district's done enough to attract more Hispanic students to the magnet programs overall.
Ramiro Lopez, former DISD School Board Candidate: They're not doing the outreach that needs to be done and that runs all the way from the trustees all the way to the superintendent. They're going to have to do that outreach - I mean it has been proven time and time again. I mean Hispanics do want to be involved, but the outreach, the welcome feeling is not there yet.
Juan Flores, Assistant Superintendent, Desegregation Monitoring, DISD: Are we satisfied? No, there's room to improve.
Hubler: Juan Flores is an assistant superintendent who oversees DISD's desegregation monitoring. He says Hispanic students make up approximately 37% of the overall magnet school population, but he expects that number to grow with increased recruitment efforts. In Fort Worth, even deeper questions are being raised. Officials like School Board President Gary Manny says attitudes towards magnet schools have changed since federal oversight was lifted in 1994.
Gary Manny, President, Fort Worth School Board: I think that people in the African American community and people in the Hispanic community as well now perceive that the issues are the quality of education received by everyone in the school, not just simply a means of mixing students so that there is an equal ethnicity or an equal balancing of people in the same building.
Hubler: Tomorrow, 90.1's Suzanne Sprague will examine the history of desegregation in Fort Worth and the growing desire to return to neighborhood schools. For KERA 90.1, I'm Kurt Hubler.