Fewer than one in five freshmen graduate area high schools ready for college in four years. That’s according to researchfrom Commit!, the Dallas County education non-profit. It’s founder, Todd Williams, came into KERA’s studios and talked about the report and the controversial attempt to turn DISD into a home-rule charter district.
Willams says close to 40,000 Dallas County children are eligible for pre-K classes but aren’t enrolled. Research shows the better prepared kids are for kindergarten, the better they’ll do through their entire school career. So getting children into pre-K is one high priority effort of Commit! and its 100+ partners.
Commit! is also looking at some DISD schools in low-income communities where students routinely outperform other schools in the same economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Williams wants to know why those students, in those schools, beat the odds.
He also offers his take on the home-rule charter effort that could change the governance and function of Dallas schools
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