By Sujata Dand, KERA reporter/producer
Dallas, TX –
Jarvis Bonner, student, South Oak Cliff High School: A lot of them don't know where they're going to eat day to day, you know. Where they're going to sleep day to day. You know, you have those cases at South Oak Cliff High School - education is like the last thing on their minds. It's like, man, if I - can I make it through the day, you know? Is something bad going to happen to me today, you know?
Aaron Vera, student, Irving Nimitz High School: You can see how it's slipping. Like maybe not like the programs you see, but like - you see teachers leaving or you can see people moving. It's not like it's a bad school, but you can see that it might turn into one.
Caroline Jennings, student, Highland Park High School: It's a great school. We're in a great area. We have parents who care about us. You know, we - this is everything you could want in a high school.
On-screen text: The Texas Supreme Court ruled students are being denied an equal education. Does money matter? Does community matter? Does anyone care? Six students take us inside their schools.
Stewart Mayer, KERA Photographer: We're just trying to get the typical life of Ana Chavez.
Ana Chavez, student, W.W. Samuell High School: Okay. I don't even know what time it is. I do my makeup in the car.
Jarvis Bonner (South Oak Cliff): I'm kind of the one to straggle around by themselves, you know. Gotta worry about going home. Can I make it home tonight? What's going to happen to me at school? Is there going to be a fight? You know, stuff like that. Just try to live day to day - got to survive, you know.
Sujata Dand, KERA Reporter: Jarvis and Ana are seniors in the Dallas School District - one of the largest school systems in the country.
Ana Chavez (W.W. Samuell): This is Samuell High. It's been here for - it's one of the oldest schools in the DISD. They're going to check my backpack. I'm going to have to walk through a metal detector. We have to do that everyday. You have to have your badge in order to come in, or they won't let you in.
Jarvis Bonner (South Oak Cliff): This is South Oak Cliff High School. It has its yeas and nays, pros and cons. I'm doing a project for a sociology class about crime in the inner city.
Dand: What kind of stuff do you see out here?
Jarvis Bonner (South Oak Cliff): Uh, the majority things are drugs. I think that's where it actually starts - the gangs dealing drugs, things turn into violence, you know - things don't go their way, you know.
Dand: More than 90% of Dallas students are black and Latino. 80% are considered economically disadvantaged.
Teacher, South Oak Cliff: Do we have anybody else fed up with the status quo of your neighborhood?
Student, South Oak Cliff: Yes, this was recent. A man got killed on Overton and Fernwood, and I live on Overton and Denwick; and another time a man got killed close to Glendale Park, and I don't stay too far from Glendale Park. It was like right in my backyard, right when I step outside.
Jarvis Bonner, South Oak Cliff: We're inside the classrooms and we know what's going on. And we see the everyday life of a regular high school student, you know.
Student, South Oak Cliff: It's just unsafe. I don't want to go nowhere.
Jarvis Bonner, South Oak Cliff: My problem is that as students, everybody don't get involved in what we do. Like Senior activities, even little things like that, we don't want to get involved in nothing like that, and we just not involved at all. That's our problem so, you know, what we do affect all the little kids in our neighborhood, you know?
Student, South Oak Cliff: After so many things have happened, well why would we want to go out?
Jarvis Bonner, South Oak Cliff: Well see, why not take that risk?
Student, South Oak Cliff: Take that risk and do what?
Jarvis Bonner, South Oak Cliff: No one really cares, no one speaks out. Just a lot of people walking the halls not worried about what's going to happen tomorrow.
Student, Highland Park: Are we on MTV Cribs?
Caroline Jennings, student, Highland Park: There's some more math classrooms over here. I say the kids are very, very nice. Not a lot of tension within the community. We're all very similar people, it seems.
Nick Albanesi, student, Highland Park: It's a good place, good kids. Everyone's pretty much Caucasian, conservative.
Caroline Jennings, Highland Park: Whether you're a knitter - you can be in the Knit Club. I'm in the "Art before the Horse," which goes to different places like the opera or different art museums.
Nick Albanesi, Highland Park: You can't really relate to people outside of Highland Park. It's kind of a bubble. I think there are a lot of advantages. Everyone goes to college. That's the standard here.
Dand: Nick and Caroline attend Highland Park High School in one of the wealthiest communities in Texas.
Caroline Jennings, Highland Park: I've never seen a fight here. You never see people with weapons or anything like that. People here are - they like the reality that they are experiencing and so there's less of a tendency to go towards drugs or violence or anything like that. There's not a need for a gang when you get along with people.
Dand: 96% of Highland Park students are white. No one here is considered economically disadvantaged.
Caroline Jennings, Highland Park: There's not a lot of diversity here, but I don't feel like you need diversity to meet people who are interested in different things who know about different things, even families who come from pretty different backgrounds. There are a lot of people here whose parents didn't come from Highland Park - made their own way. My dad, for example, was an orphan in Greece and grew up in a poor environment.
Jim Jennings, Caroline's father: Education was terribly important. It changed my life. And I wanted my children to have the best education that I could possibly afford them.
Dand: Caroline's parents are both attorneys. They've lived in Highland Park since Caroline was in elementary school.
Jim Jennings: I think it's extremely important that the children have a sense of community and that the community cares about the children. That small town atmosphere that Highland Parks creates and enforces and reinforces is very useful. Maybe it does take a village like Hillary says, although I don't agree with Hillary on too much else.
Paige Campbell, student, Irving Nimitz High School: I live on one side of town and the school I choose to go to is on the other side of town. We just have really good programs at my school - really good academics, really good sports. So I made the decision to commute every day, which sometimes isn't very much fun because all my friends live on the other side of town and no one wants to come visit me.
Aaron Vera, Irving Nimitz: There's another shoe in here somewhere. Me and Paige can pretty much talk about anything. She's been my best friend for about five years now. At first, I didn't really like her; she was kind of like teacher-pettish.
Paige Campbell, Irving Nimitz: I would probably say I'm not like most students. I'm very school-oriented. I always try my hardest at school. That's just the way I am.
Dand: Describe yourself to me.
Aaron Vera, Irving Nimitz: I like long walks through the beach. I had that joke ready and then I messed it up. I would say I'm a less-motivated version of Paige.
Dand: Paige and Aaron are seniors at Nimitz High School in the Irving School District.
Aaron Vera, Irving Nimitz: Our school, it's pretty middle-of-the-road. Like we used to be a suburban neighborhood but lately we've had an influx of lower income families.
Paige Campbell, Irving Nimitz: That just creates a different dynamic at school, and sometimes you find kids who just aren't as motivated as they used to be.
Dand: Twenty years ago, less than 14% of Irving students were considered economically disadvantaged. Today, it's more than 60%.
Aaron Vera, Irving Nimitz: Yeah, look how much its changed from 1994 when I entered kindergarten.
Paige Campbell, Irving Nimitz: It's doubled. Our Hispanic population has doubled in the district.
Aaron Vera, Irving Nimitz: My mom is second generation and my dad is an immigrant. He had to work himself through school and my mom also had to work herself through school and so they couldn't really afford to finish. They pushed me to want to finish - like it was never even - I always knew I was going to go to college. There was never any doubt to that question.
Dand: Less than half Aaron's classmates took college entrance exams.
Aaron Vera, Irving Nimitz: My mom doesn't know things about tax reform and that, but she can see that the school is slipping. Like my brother is going to be the last one that's going to go here. Like my parents have already decided that my sister isn't going to get as quality an education as I got. So, as soon as my brother drives, we're going to move so that she can get a better education.
Paige Campbell, Irving Nimitz: I am fortunate because I am in classes with kids who want to go to college, so I get a little bit of a different view in the classroom. But it just seems like we don't have the school spirit we used to have, and we're lacking things like that, that, not tangible things but things in attitude that have just changed with I guess the changing population. Maybe education isn't stressed as much; maybe it can't be. Maybe some people can't afford to put as much emphasis on that. Maybe they have to work and other things have to take the place of cheering at the football game.
Aaron Vera, Irving Nimitz: You can see a separation happening between the kids who want to do stuff and the kids that don't; and you can see there's almost a tension between them.
Ana Chavez, W.W. Samuell: This is a low-income area, and our school isn't the greatest.
Dand: Ana lives in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Dallas. She moved to Texas from Mexico with her family five years ago.
Dand (to Chavez): Does the neighborhood reflect the type of students that go to your school?
Ana Chavez, W.W. Samuell: What you're trying to like get is like bad neighborhood - bad students - bad school?
Dand: I'm just asking.
Ana Chavez, W.W. Samuell: If that's the thing, like I said, the student is as good as he or she wants to be. So, it doesn't matter where you come from.
Dand: Are there gangs or drugs here?
Ana Chavez, W.W. Samuell: Well, we had a really bad reputation for gangs and drugs. I guess, I know a few drug dealers at my school and I mean, they're my friends and they're still going to school. They're just trying to get an education and they're finding a way to get money. I mean, and it may not be the best way to get money, but it's a way to get money when maybe they don't have parents at home to help them out. How are they going to survive? We're 16, 17, or whatever. You still do stupid stuff. Eventually they'll stop and they'll realize they're doing wrong - or they get killed.
Caroline Jennings, Highland Park: The people who live here really support the school district. They come to auctions we have. They come to car washes.
Dand: The Highland Park community raised four million dollars in private donations for teachers and school activities last year.
Caroline Jennings, Highland Park: There's so many fundraisers here and in a way the community could have said, "We're sick of fundraisers," but instead they're saying, "Have the fundraisers - we'll be there."
Jim Jennings, Caroline's father: Highland Park has to raise all kinds of money privately to make up for the fact that the school district just can't afford things anymore. We're sending 70% of our tax dollars out and the schools can't get by on the 30% that's left.
Dand: Texas schools are funded primarily by local property taxes. Because some communities like Highland Park generate more tax revenue, the law requires they send money back to the state to supplement poorer districts. Highland Park raised over $100 million dollars in property taxes this year; more than 70% went to other schools.
Dr. Cathy Bryce, Superintendent, Highland Park: I - as an educator - I believe in an equalized system, and I think our community understands that we need to have some sense of equity in our system. But when we are cutting programs, raising class sizes, not able to provide, relying heavier each year on private dollars to shore up the gap, it looks like the system needs some - you know, to be restructured.
Dand: Dr. Cathy Bryce is Highland Park's superintendent. She's cut the budget for the past four years. The district's per student spending is slightly below the state average.
Dr. Cathy Bryce, Highland Park: I certainly think, when you sit outside and you look in, there's a tendency to say that it's the money - that money is what goes on here and that money is what makes things happen and that these people somehow are elitist and they want some thing for themselves that they don't want anyone else to have. But, I'm not a part of this community. I've been here four years, and I'll tell you it's totally different from that. They are the hardest working children that I have ever observed in school. Their parents are the most supportive, bar none. It's almost hard to find the adjectives to describe how supportive the parents are of schools and community.
Caroline Jennings, Highland Park: The cafeteria, historically, is always run by parents. Which is great - it saves us about $200,000 a year in hiring people. It's a historic tradition that has been going on since 1916, and it's usually moms. We just love the volunteers.
Dr. Cathy Bryce, Highland Park: If I'm I worried in Highland Park, we have some communities that I can't imagine the fear that strikes in the hearts of the leaders of that community - for what they may not be able to do for children who are totally dependent on that school system for any education.
Joy Barnhart, Principal, W.T.White High School: You have to like these children. You have to enjoy who they are and the crazy things they do and their terrible decisions. There's nothing like it. We are open to every student who comes to the door.
Dand: Joy Barnhart has been an educator for 40 years. She's elevated W.T. White High School in Dallas to one of the top schools in the nation. The annual budget for the Dallas school district is more than a billion dollars. 90% comes from local property taxes. The rest comes from wealthy districts like Highland Park.
Joy Barnhart, W.T. White High School: Two students showed up last week from El Salvador. Do they speak English? No. Have they been educated? No, because sometimes we get refugees. So here you have a 17 year old coming for the first time to be educated. So look at the clientele that you have and then you have to look at needs and how you serve that clientele.
Dand: Dallas spends less per high school student than Highland Park, but the urban school district's overall spending per student is higher because of money allocated for specialized staff and programs.
Joy Barnhart, W.T. White High School: You've got 165,000 kids and many of those are at-risk kids. They need additional reading programs. Do they need that in the suburbs? No. Well, when you have additional reading programs, you've got to have additional reading teachers. They have to have additional training. Those materials and supplies have to be there. That's extra funds that some schools don't have to - to deliver. They can use it on something else. It's expensive to provide that additional resource to keep those teachers teaching. These teachers teach six classes a day. They teach up to 165 children a day. 30 teachers travel in this building. What does travel mean? It means they push a cart from room to room. They don't have their own classroom. Why? Because we're so crowded.
Dand: It sounds like what you're saying, though, is that above and beyond equitable funding, urban schools need more funding?
Joy Barnhart, W.T. White High School: They do. You're not starting at the same baseline. You're not starting on the same starting line. Let me just say this, the more resources there are on the campus, the more successful we will be.
Mike Campbell, Vice Principal, Irving Nimitz High School: I guess we're probably like any other high school our size. We have our share of kids disrupting class and kids doing other things. So, we have all the problems of a small city, and we're kind of the mayor and the police officer and constable all rolled into one.
Dand: Mike Campbell is Vice Principal at Nimitz High School. He is also Paige's father.
Mike Campbell, Irving Nimitz: With our three high schools and now adding the academy, you know, we're still growing and our numbers are still growing.
Dand: Irving doesn't raise enough money in property taxes to fully fund its schools. More than a third of the district's budget comes from property wealthy school systems like Highland Park.
Mike Campbell, Irving Nimitz: When I first came here, we had 1,700 students. I think our demographics were about 17% Hispanic at that time, and now we're more like 58-62% Hispanic. So that is a huge demographic change.
Dand: How's the culture of the school changed as a result of the demographic change?
Mike Campbell, Irving Nimitz: Our programs seem to continue going, but I think some of it is doing more with less people.
Dand: Why do you think the kids are less involved?
Mike Campbell, Irving Nimitz: I think some of it - of course, you can always say it's the language barrier, but it could be the language barrier of their mom their dad. They don't feel comfortable visiting with us because we don't have as many people here that speak Spanish. We do try to do things to get them up here. I guess the culture as a whole - sometimes you don't see the value put on education and school. Family activities are somewhat more important than a school activity.
Dand: In the last year, standardized test scores at Nimitz High School have dropped from a Recognized level to Academically Acceptable.
Mike Campbell, Irving Nimitz: We spend extra time tutoring with the kids after school, before school, Saturdays.
Dand: Even though Irving receives money from other school districts, it still has less to spend per student than Dallas or Highland Park.
Mike Campbell, Irving Nimitz: Because we didn't have the money, we had to change our program; and by changing our program, I think we're hurting the kids. I think there needs to be more money, and I think they need to figure out a way in Austin to do something about those things. If things don't get fixed, then we'll see a change in the programs that are extra expenses. But in my opinion, they aren't really extra. I think those are necessary and you need those in school.
Aaron Vera, Irving Nimitz: Tennis will be like one of the first things cut, without a doubt. Football and math will be the last things alive if you had to cut things.
Jarvis Bonner, South Oak Cliff: I guess it's not the safest place to park your car.
Dand: What happened?
Jarvis Bonner, South Oak Cliff: A guy came in and stole a car and rammed the fence down over here. One day we had about five or six cars broken into - CD players stolen. A bunch of crazy mess like that. And the bad thing is that we still don't have a real security guard out here watching.
Dand: What did you come away with? Were you thinking, here's problems 'cause there's not enough money?
Jarvis Bonner, South Oak Cliff: I looked at our school budget itself, and we have a nice budget coming in, and I wondered where exactly is the money going to? Is it really being accounted for?
Ana Chavez, W.W. Samuell: At Samuell, the restrooms were like a really bad issue. It was like - we don't have bathroom doors. Then we got used to it. But if you go to some other school and you see they have bathroom doors, and we're in the same district - I think we deserve bathroom doors, as well. I was like, maybe we shouldn't get used to it and do something about it.
Dand: Ana took pictures of the facilities and she showed them to a Dallas school board member.
Ana Chavez, W.W. Samuell: She was like whoa, this is unbelievable. We should do something to fix this problem. So like, when she went over there it was like two or three weeks before school ended. So basically, there was nothing she could do about it to fix this problem. But I guess, next year everything is going to be fixed, I hope.
Dand: Ana's high school has had three principals in the last year. No one from Samuell or the district was willing to respond to this issue.
Jarvis Bonner, South Oak Cliff: We need to have someone to account for the money, to really account for it. Because if it's not, then we need to have someone from the district or maybe the state to come down and take a look at our budget and make sure that it's being spent in the right areas that it needs to be spent in.
Dand: Jarvis' principal at South Oak Cliff also didn't have time for an interview.
Dand (to Chavez): Do you think that you need more money to fix the problems at your school?
Ana Chavez, W.W. Samuell: It's not basically the money. Well, money always helps. But, basically, we need a faculty and a staff that actually is there for us. And, that has spirit to do something.
Bonner: You know, I have those couple of teachers that actually do care about students. It's evident, you know, in the classrooms. But you have those teachers that will tell you they are just here for a paycheck, you know - that they don't really care, you know - that we just sit around in the class and do nothing, just sit and talk.
Ana Chavez, W.W. Samuell: A teacher will go in there for a year or two and they'll be like really happy and try to help, but by the third year they'll try to leave.
Caroline Jennings, Highland Park: The teachers here are just amazing. Our new choir director this year took out of his own time not being paid or anything to stay after with us. Especially, for kids who don't have voice teachers. It made us more prepared than I feel like a lot of other schools would have been.
Dand: In the past five years, Highland Park has made budget cuts - eliminating 10% of its professional staff and cutting programs.
Caroline Jennings, Highland Park: Teachers are taking on more classes. It's harder for them to reach out to the students now because there are more students and more classes. When you're taking away 70% of our funds and you're giving it to 100 or how many schools you're giving it to, it's hurting us more than it's helping the people that the redistributed funds go to.
Nick Albanesi, Highland Park: I think it's the whole concept of it's our money - we - you work for your money and it's going to be taken away and given to someone you've never seen before and someone you don't know.
Dand: Student Voices, a KERA civics project, brought Nick and other kids together to talk about how to fund schools.
Paige Campbell, Irving Nimitz: Do we want more state funding?
Jarvis Bonner, South Oak Cliff: We don't have the textbooks and facilities we want.
Nick Albanesi, Highland Park: When I first came, I expected them to say, "We have all these new facilities, everything's brand new in our schools and thanks to you guys for paying for it." But, when I started talking to the guys, I realized they probably need the money a lot more than we do.
Paige Campbell, Irving Nimitz: They just didn't have a lot of basic supplies and things we would just consider standard in our school and so they really need help; and that makes me see that the system really doesn't work.
Nick Albanesi, Highland Park: It really changed my view on how funding is really needed and something has to be done with the overall system.
Dr. Cathy Bryce, Highland Park: Obviously, my first loyalty, each and every day, is to the children of the community of the Highland Park School District. But I have to tell you that I'm worried in a big sense for the state of Texas. And I think it's time for us, as a collective body of Texans and a collective legislature, to decide if we're going to appropriately and adequately fund public education for every boy and girl in Texas. And I think it's the greatest equalizer for inequitable birth circumstances that exist in our world today.
Aaron Vera, Irving Nimitz: I guess the answer is to try and instill it from an earlier age - try and instill in them to go to college and be successful. I mean kids in other school districts, 95% of them go to college and, yes, it's because they have great teachers but it's also because the kids expect it. And what we need to do is instill in everyone the need to succeed and the need to do better.
On-screen text: Between freshman and senior year, 38% of Nimitz High School students drop out or leave the district.
Caroline Jennings, Highland Park: I think that there's a definite sense of privilege here, being blessed to have stuff. I feel like people really, really know that they have great opportunities and that you are really very fortunate.
On-screen text: Between freshman and senior year, less than 5% of Highland Park students drop out or leave the district.
On-screen text: Between freshman and senior year, 60% of South Oak Cliff students drop out or leave the district.
Jarvis Bonner, South Oak Cliff: We really want and we really need someone to just understand and just listen.
On-screen text: At W.W. Samuell High School, almost 70% of the students drop out or leave the district.
Ana Chavez, W.W. Samuell: We need to know that you actually care, if you don't have someone to lean on and tell you if you're doing a good job. If not, then you're just going to fall.
Paige Campbell, Irving Nimitz (in her graduation speech): I hope you all do something great with what you have been given. Set yourself on the path to something remarkable and by all means, enjoy the ride.
On-screen text: Aaron and Paige are freshmen at the University of Oklahoma. Ana is a freshman at The University of Texas at Austin. She wants to go to law school. Jarvis is majoring in music at Texas Christian University. Nick is a senior at Highland Park High School. He has plans to go to college. Caroline is a freshman at Harvard University.
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